Death positivity asks the question: what if death were not so frightening?

For many of us, the idea of death is truly anxiety-inducing. It goes beyond some childish fear of ghouls and ghosts and hits at the value of life. What does it mean to live a good life? And what will it mean to lose that?

Honored to be speaking with Rise Up Frederick on November 3. We’ll be discussing how understanding grief can help us build resilience, community, and fortitude during these difficult political times.

C-CAT presents The Impact of Dementia: Grief and loss experiences of adult children and caretakers. This is part of a growing death education series presented by the Center for Counseling and Applied Thanatology.

Grief and loss are not exclusive to death-related experiences. Grief can result from job loss, loss of purpose, loss of hope, etc. In my work, the focus is in engaging with the grief process, regardless of what was lost. Two important, scientifically backed processes are ones I return to again and again: (1) the dual-process model of grief, and (2) continuing bonds. The dual-process model is about the importance of making time for both emotional and practical parts of grief. We cannot focus on completing one before doing the other. Continuing bonds is about creating rituals of connection, whether that connection is physical, like an object, or a sense of learning or accomplishment.

Kendra is co-presenting at the Counselors for Social Justice Conference in April 2025. Her presentation focuses on the role of cycling hormones and their impact on mood, attention, cognition, and the counseling process itself.