Meeting at the Abyss of Pain and Suffering with Skill, Compassion, and Resilience

This free, pre-conference symposium will take place on Thursday, October 23rd, 2025, from 10 AM to 2 PM.

Meeting at the Abyss of Pain and Suffering with Skill, Compassion, and Resilience

Sponsored by Victoria Hospice and Palliative Care Foundation

Pain at the end of life is rarely just physical — it is often woven with emotional, social, bureaucratic, and spiritual/existential suffering. This is the terrain of total pain experience for patients who are facing their mortality, and total pain management for care providers. Supporting the suffering and dying can feel like standing at the edge of an abyss: witnessing suffering we can’t always fix, and returning to that place again and again to stand alongside the ill person and their family with compassion and care.

This seminar draws on the lived experience of care providers to explore what it means to meet suffering with presence, skill, and resilience. Through storytelling, interactive dialogue, and practical exercises, participants will examine the neuroscience of total pain experience, compassionate response strategies, and mitigating the impact of this work on our own well-being.

Participants will learn and practice in-the-moment psychological first aid tools to support nervous system regulation — practical skills that increase both patient comfort and care provider capacity for steadiness in the midst of complex suffering.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this seminar, participants will be able to:

  • Describe the multidimensional nature of “total pain experience” and the clinical, emotional, and existential challenges it presents.
  • Describe the Total Pain Management Model that arose from the work of Dame Cicely Saunders
  • Apply practical strategies for psychological first aid and nervous system regulation to support patients, family members and care providers in moments of acute suffering.
  • Explore the neuroscience of pain perception and the implications for compassionate palliative care.
  • Reflect on the personal impact of repeated exposure to suffering and identify approaches to sustain resilience and meaning in their work.

Intended Audience:
Physicians, nurses, social workers, counsellors, allied health professionals, spiritual care providers, volunteers, educators, system leaders, and policy-makers involved in hospice palliative care across Canada.

Agenda

Welcome and Opening 10-1015

Land acknowledgement

Storytelling

Exploring perspectives on meeting people experiencing pain and suffering 1015-1040

Interactive discussions

The Landscape of Total Pain-The Science and Humanity 10:40-11:30

Didactic, storytelling, discussion, tools

45 minute lunchbreak 11:30-12:15

Lunch and Expressive Arts

Meeting at the Abyss-Tools for in the moment Support 12:30-1:15

Practice-Based Skills Session

Impact on us-How we keep returning. 1:15-1:45

Sharing our experiences

Closing reflections 1:45-2:00