Staff Profile: Cindy Carlson

Bereavement services provide continuing care

When Ann DeWeese’s father died in 2002, she channeled her grief into helping her devastated mother deal with his death. But when her mother died in January at age 91, only a week after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Ann had a hard time coping not only with the loss, but the shock.

“My grandmother lived to 98, so I didn’t expect my mother to slow down until she was 95,” she said. “I thought we had more time. I always said my mom without my dad was like half a pair of scissors. Now, I don't feel like that.”

Those feelings are perfectly normal, according to Cindy Carlson, the therapist who heads Mission Hospice’s bereavement program.
 
“I always tell people grief is a normal response to death,” said Carlson. “It’s not an illness that needs to be treated. Grief changes people forever, and they may need help to rise to the occasion.”

She noted that grief not only impacts emotions, but also may affect physical and mental faculties. She said many grieving people are relieved to find that they are not losing their memory – they are just experiencing grief.

Ann DeWeese joined Mission Hospice’s weekly drop-in support group, although she says she thinks of it more as a bereavement “class,” because she’s learned so much.

“The classes let you know it’s OK to feel the way you’re feeling,” she said. “Friends are pretty sympathetic the first month after your loss, but then everyone expects you to pop back and be OK. The class is a safe place to be, a safe place to fall.”

Ann’s daughter, Elizabeth DeWeese, 23, initially attended the group to support her mother but found it spoke to her too.

“It caught me off guard how much I needed it,” she said. “Just to be able to come to them and open up about feelings I’d set aside was a gift. Usually when things happen in life, I adjust well. This time, I found it very comforting to have other people there so I didn’t feel alone. The group lets you be yourself. The outside world can be harsh and insensitive, even though they don’t mean to be.”

The bereavement group is just part of Mission Hospice’s bereavement service. Survivors are invited to join the group in the condolence letter sent after the patient’s death. Over the next year, families also receive “we’re thinking about you” calls and notes from the bereavement staff, unless the family requests otherwise.
 
“The bereavement service actually starts when people come into the hospice program,” Carlson said. “Our nurses and social workers assess bereavement risks from the beginning.” Carlson, who is both a licensed family therapist (MFT) and a physician, said she provides extra support, counseling and intervention to families and individuals both before and after the hospice patient dies.

Cindy Carlson: Bereavement therapist

Cindy Carlson, Mission Hospice’s director of Bereavement Services, was a doctor practicing internal medicine when she decided she was interested in another kind of health care.

“It became clear to me that a lot of my patients just wanted to talk,” Carlson recalled. “I was frustrated that I couldn’t spend as much time with them as I wanted.”
 
As a child, growing up in a family that included a sister born with congenital defects, she also knew that medical illness profoundly affects families, and vice versa. She earned her medical degree at the University of California at San Francisco and her master’s degree in family therapy (MFT) at the University of San Francisco. When her MFT program included a stint in a hospice, Carlson said she’d found her niche.
 
“It’s just such a rich time in people’s lives,” she said. “Counseling is a way to use loss in a meaningful way.”