Losses, be they familial, romantic, or something else, can affect far more than feelings. They can disrupt daily routines, concentration, and even a person’s sense of what comes next. For college students balancing school, work, family and plans for the future, losses can devastate emotionally and negatively alter academic performance.
This fall, the UHD Counseling Department and Center for Public Service and Community Research will help students and the community better understand those experiences—and develop healthier ways of moving through them.
“Losses That Shape Us (and what comes after),” brings together faculty from social work and campus counseling staff to explore forms of loss that often receive less attention than bereavement alone. Sessions address family estrangement and conflict, romantic heartbreak and rejection, career and financial setbacks, and changes in physical and mental health, before concluding with an open “Ask Me Anything” discussion.
The series is designed to give participants more than a vocabulary for grief. Using Social Work Associate Professor Dr. Liza Barros-Lane’s Integrative Embodied–Narrative Model, participants will examine how loss can disrupt four interconnected dimensions of identity: habits and the familiarity of everyday life; roles, purpose and confidence in taking action; an individual’s sense of personal history; and the larger story through which people understand their past, present and future.
For students, that framework can help make sense of experiences that otherwise may be difficult to name. A breakup without clear closure, uncertainty about a career path, family distance, financial instability, or changes in health can leave students struggling to focus on coursework, make decisions, or envision the future. The series distinguishes between losses with clear endings and ambiguous losses, while emphasizing coping, support, self-compassion and the longer-term work of rebuilding meaning.
By opening these conversations beyond the classroom, the series also extends UHD faculty expertise into the community, giving participants practical frameworks for recognizing how loss affects themselves and others and for responding in safer, healthier ways.
The six sessions take place from 12:30 - 2 p.m., Sept. 17 through Nov. 18 in the Buffalo Bayou Room, with participants invited to attend one or multiple sessions.
Click the button below to view the full series schedule and register to attend.