Tear Soup
These items build upon the 12 tools for “Running Well and Resting Well” that we included as a chapter in Doing Member Care Well (2002). More tools and guidelines specifically for team building are included in our “Tools for Team Viability” article, in the member care book we edited in 1992.
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Tear Soup is a tool to help people deal with grief and loss.
It creatively tells the story of a person who is dealing with a major loss via
the metaphor of making soup. Tear Soup
is in three formats: book, DVD (17 minutes), and Power Point. The book is
written simply with full-page illustrations to complement the many principles
and “ingredients” described (also in Spanish). We have found that people from
many backgrounds and both young and old are able to “savor” this story and
easily apply it to their own soup making process. Tear Soup is available from Grief Watch: Resources for Bereaved Families and
Professional Caregivers. See their web site for more materials including Grief
Facts and Helpful Links.
We have used the book and DVD with mission/aid workers in
different settings: supportive counseling with individuals; small group
readings/discussions; group enactment where there is significant
loss/transition. One example of the latter is when we used some of the concepts
from the book and placed two large imaginary caldrons in the middle of the
group in order to make what we call “group-soup.” In this case, the group made
a large pot of tear group-soup and also a large pot of courage group-soup (to also focus on the
positive choices/actions—the soup ingredients—that people had taken and would
need to take). There are lots of creative and helpful ways to use the material
in the book and the metaphor of soup making. Bon appetit!
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