Healing After A Loss, Ken Druck Ep. 3 A Life & Death Conversation with Dr. Bob Uslander

Dr. Ken Druck's work in personal transformation, male psychology, parenting, and grief literacy has awakened readers to their absolute best selves for almost four decades. In this episode, Dr. Druck and Dr. Bob talk about healing after a loss.     Contact Dr. Ken Druck website Transcript Dr. Bob: I'm here with a good friend of mine who I'm excited to have this conversation with. Ken Druck and I have had many conversations over the years, most of which end up being fairly deep and a lot of insights come out of them. I think we're just both in this space of really contemplating life as well as death just because of who we are and our experiences. I'm excited to have Ken share some of his insights. He'll do that in just a moment, but I'd like to introduce him to you. Ken's work in personal transformation, parenting, psychology, and the literacy of grief has really helped people become, I think, their best selves for almost 40 years now. When you look at Ken, you can't believe he's been doing this work for that long. He's the recipient of numerous awards including a Distinguished Contribution to Psychology, Visionary Leadership Award.
He has really a lifetime of service to the community. He's recognized really as a lifeline to people all over the world, to individuals, families, and communities through his work, which includes the founding of the Jenna Druck Center to honor the life and spirit of his daughter, Jenna; and we'll talk a bit about Jenna and the foundation that he created. Ken really has kind of set a new standard of care and healing out of tragedies like 9/11, Columbine, Katrina, and Sandy Hook, and I look forward to having him talk a little bit about how those experiences have shaped his life and his perspective. Ken has recently come out with a new book called Courageous Aging: Your Best Years Ever Reimagined. In this book, Dr. Ken explores the fears, some of the myths and biases in our culture about aging, so it's a perfect setup here for this conversation. In the book, he also kind of debunks a lot of the myths and offers a path to help people immerse themselves in the wisdom that we've cultivated over the course of our lives. With that introduction, I would like to introduce and ask Ken to say hello.
Dr. Ken Druck: Greetings, Bob. So good to be with you and in a conversation, in a life and death conversation. My goodness. What a wonderful forum you've created to be able to talk openly and safely about all these important issues that so directly improve the quality of our lives and the quality of our deaths.
Dr. Bob: Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. The inspiration for this really comes from life, from just being in this space. You're the same way. You're having conversations with people, both personal and in your professional life. I think, like me, there are many times when you think, wow, if somebody else had been able to listen in on this conversation, how much value would they have received, how much insight into their own issues and their own struggles and their own sort of triumphs. The conversations I have with my patients, with their families, with people like you, I think are so valuable, and I don't want to keep it to ourselves, right? I feel compelled and pulled to really allow people in on these conversations, so thank you for being willing to join in.
Dr. Ken Druck: Thank you for having me.
Dr. Bob: Yeah, absolutely. In your introduction, I abbreviated it. There's so much more, and I think we're going to have a conversation that will last about 30 minutes. I know that the wealth of information that you have and the experiences and insights could go on for 30 hours or potentially 30 days. It's going to be a challenge, but we're going to try to keep this concise enough, and then probably have follow- up conversations as time goes on. I posed some questions to you in advance of our conversation, and I want to jump right in. I don't mince words, and I don't pull back. I just want to get this out