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Behind the Profession The Mental Health Toll of Funeral Work
229 Plays28 days ago
What happens when the people who stand beside grief every day are expected to carry it quietly?
In this episode, Jennifer Muldowney sits down with Dwight, a former funeral director turned therapist, for a deeply honest conversation about the emotional toll of working in death care. Having lived both roles, Dwight speaks with real understanding about what funeral professionals hold day after day, the sorrow they witness, the stories they carry, and the parts of themselves they often have to set aside just to keep going.
Together, they talk about how little support exists for the mental health of people in funeral service, and how often their pain goes unseen. They explore the silence, the stigma, and the weight of doing work that asks so much from the heart while giving so little room to process it. This episode also shines a light on the importance of community, shared understanding, and spaces like Funeral Professional Peer Support where people can finally feel less alone.
Tune in for a moving conversation about grief, compassion, and what it means to care for others when no one has taught you how to care for yourself.
Key Topics:
-The hidden mental health toll of funeral work
-Why funeral professionals often suffer in silence
-The lack of real support for people in death care
-How stigma keeps funeral directors in the shadows
-The need for research, resources, and peer support in funeral service
Quotes from the episode:
“If we would just face the fact that we are dying, we live better and we love more.”
— Jennifer Muldowney
“No one in these mental health spaces are talking about funeral directors. And that to me is alarming."
— Dwight Thompson
Timestamps:
[01:43] Funeral Professionals Are Human Too
[03:18] Dwight’s Journey from Funeral Work to Therapy
[06:49] Seeking Help and Not Being Understood
[08:37] The Gap in Mental Health Training
[09:36] Why Funeral Directors Are Not First Responders
[14:31] The Overlooked Reality of Funeral Service
[17:58] Stigma Around Death Care Work
[21:20] The Power of Peer Support
[33:02] Why the System Needs Outside Help
[36:26] What Comes Next for the Industry
Connect with Dwight Thompson at:
Websites - https://www.funeralpeersupport.ca/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwight-thompson-msw-rsw-rmft-s-31160621a/
Email: dwight@ottawapsychotherapyservices.ca
Connect with Jennifer/The Glam Reaper on socials at:
Instagram - / jennifermuldowney
TikTok - / therealglamreaper
YouTube - / @theglamreapermuldowney
LinkedIn - / jennifermuldowney
Facebook Page - / muldowneymemorials
Email us - glamreaperpodcast@gmail.com
Shop Merch - https://the-glam-reaper.printify.me/p...
Listen to The Glam Reaper Podcast on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
The Glam Reaper® AMAZON Storefront - https://amzn.to/4hObpOh
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Transcript
Introduction to Funeral Directors in Mental Health
00:00:00
Speaker
no one No one in these mental health spaces are talking about funeral directors. And that, to me, is alarming.
00:00:20
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Muldowney, aka the Glam Reaper. On today's episode, we are talking all things mental health and then some. I'd like to introduce one of my favorite people in the space, Dwight. and Dwight and me met at, well, we met through the Funeral Professional Peer Support Group. which is a great, I'm going to give them a shout out. That's a great group. and If you're in the funeral space at all, um really, you know, check out their, they have, I think it's weekly, monthly meetings. and They have a lot of resources, generally just helping and funeral professionals with mental health in this space. And we are going to talk
Exploring the 'Glam Reaper' Podcast
00:01:02
Speaker
about that and more things. Dwight, welcome to the episode. Welcome to the show.
00:01:07
Speaker
Thank you. It's nice to be here. And i love the Glam Reaper. And this is probably one of my most listened to podcasts. But it's ah it's a great podcast because it really does... it Well, it doesn't always specifically talk to people that work in death care directly. yeah You've got like a huge amount of people that are coming in...
00:01:33
Speaker
filling in the spaces around death care yeah that, that make it an interesting, an interesting podcast. Yeah. Yes, we definitely, our audience is quite varied. um We have, we've, we funeral professionals that listen in and then we have what I would consider, especially 16 years ago, the me's of the world, the Joe public, the, the, you know, the person who's interested, maybe they're interested in being a funeral director or death doula or into celebrant work, or in some way just have been marked by the the business or by death or loss. and But we have some, yeah, we have some fascinating
Dwight's Journey from Funeral Director to Mental Health Professional
00:02:10
Speaker
stories. We've had people from both in the industry talk on the show and then people who've just gone through their own experiences of loss and people who've who work in the space and have experienced their own losses because at the end of the day, pro funeral professionals are human beings. And we also have families and we also suffer grief and loss and stuff like that. So, um yeah, we we where we're wide and varied. that We do not discriminate here for sure.
00:02:35
Speaker
But it's great to it's great to have you on the show and tell and the listeners, Dwight, if you don't mind, just a little bit about your professional day to day realm. You're based in Canada. Yes, I am based in Canada. I am in Ottawa, Ontario.
00:02:49
Speaker
Well, just outside of Ottawa, nobody knows where Morrisburg is. So i it's very cold today, a lot of snow, although yesterday was 15 degrees and it was beautiful. Today we woke up to power outages and a lot of snow. So we i live in a section of Ontario that gets a lot of bad weather. But it's very warm in here though.
00:03:13
Speaker
Warm in your heart, love that.
00:03:17
Speaker
um I work full-time for a practice for Ottawa Psychotherapy Services, and I'm the Director of Veterans Services for the practice. So I look after the work of about 19 clinical associates who are all seeing veterans and in and and what we know as the the Rehabilitation Program through Veterans Affairs Canada.
00:03:41
Speaker
So that's my my day to day stuff. My hobby, though, is mental health with funeral directors or funeral service professionals, I should say. Yeah. but Just to build on that, it's not like I am just this is sort of fetish or king for me.
00:04:00
Speaker
Prior to becoming a marriage and family therapist, I was a funeral director for 15 years. both an embalmer and a funeral director's license in Nova Scotia. And then I wrote my on Ontario board exams and got a class one license. And then I stayed in, I was roughly in this space for 15 years. And then i started transitioning out into my social work training and degree. Large part because i was finding myself very drawn to the grief work and the counseling.
00:04:31
Speaker
of being a funeral director. So that's sort of what got me
Challenges in Funeral Directors' Mental Health
00:04:35
Speaker
on thee on the road towards that. But now after being in this space for 15 years, I'm now looking back at my first 15 years and going, you know what? That explains a lot of stuff. Yeah, you're now almost mine too. And it's interesting how you almost did the opposite of me, slightly, him where I went from wedding planning to funeral planning. So I always say I went, you know, turned to the dark side. You turned from the dark side to the light, as in you went into wedding and marriage. I don't know that it's the light side, honestly, um but maybe it's the even darker side. I don't know. ah
00:05:14
Speaker
Various shades of gray. ah Yes. so Well, there's a movie like after that, so we won't go into what that, maybe that's brought up in some of your counseling sessions. I don't know. have Various different shades of gray. We color outside the box here.
00:05:29
Speaker
And so, yeah, so you're kind of almost coming full circle. You're taking your first 15 years, combining it with the last 15 years, which marriage and the implosion and divorce and of marriage and all that sort of stuff. is loss and is grief and we talk about that um widely on this podcast too and and for me myself in in voicing that you know there's very huge varieties of loss and grief it's not just the actual physical death of somebody but tell me what was the returning point where which drew you back into the funeral space and and therefore you know meeting with Michael and funeral professional peer support and you know
00:06:10
Speaker
I was listening to all the the funeral directors talk about their mental health, and I started going, my goodness, that's me. And it really hit home in a couple ways.
00:06:23
Speaker
The first one was like... okay, the funeral home did actually do a number on my head. And then the second way was like, but no one was there to support me.
00:06:36
Speaker
So it it actually brought up a memory when I was doing my apprenticeship in Nova Scotia where I actually, okay, so you have to get this. I was doing my apprenticeship in Nova Scotia being paid every two weeks, $274.
00:06:50
Speaker
two hundred and seventy four dollars And there were a period in my apprenticeship where i I had to get support and, and someone, I think it was probably the church I was attending at the time. They said, why don't you see a therapist? And I didn't even know at that point what therapists were all about, but. yeah I went and she wanted, of course, it was private, private side to pay out of pocket. But I remember giving $60 to her. And that was like most of my pay for that pay period. Right. And she i told her what was going on. i I just got right into the bones of it and told her what was going on. And that was it.
00:07:30
Speaker
There was no, like, she didn't know what to say. She didn't say anything helpful. she didn't even know my career. She didn't even know what funeral directors did.
00:07:41
Speaker
um Like, she knew what funeral directors do in the in the very broad surface sense but yeah she could she couldn't imagine the things that i was going through at the time there were there was a few things that i had gone through that looking back i was like yeah you needed you you needed to go to therapy to deal with that But because of the the time and the context, I mean, at that point, mental health wasn't even a word or a phrase in the funeral home. So when I went to see this this therapist, she she was not prepared to to to deal with this. Yeah.
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so that got me thinking when I was listening to the podcast, i was like, has that changed? has Have therapists actually, you know, gotten educated in the ways of the funeral home?
00:08:34
Speaker
ah And after spending like two years with that PPS, I can confidently say, Jennifer, they have not. There's absolutely no no training programs. there's and We're not talking about... When I went to social work school, which was undergrad and graduate, and now I'm doing my doctorate in social work at Berry University in Florida, although I'm not there on campus, I'd love to... i was
00:09:03
Speaker
no one No one in these mental health spaces are talking about phenol directors. Wow. And that's that to me is alarming. And do they, in these courses, do they cover a myriad of occupations?
00:09:20
Speaker
Yeah, they do. I mean, if you if you're talking to police first responders, like police, firefighters, military, they have research out the wazoo, like, and interventions focus on, like, there's so much money funneled into the first responder community.
Understanding the 'Last Responder' Role
00:09:40
Speaker
It's ridiculous.
00:09:41
Speaker
But then when it comes to funeral directors, we get, and this is another beef I have, and you're going about some my beefs, but I have a belief on this show. We love it. Give it to us. I hate the word.
00:09:52
Speaker
i it The word fits, but I actually hate the phrase last responder because it groups into the first responder community and we are nothing like the first responder community.
00:10:05
Speaker
um I'm not even sure, but I guess we have to be somewhere on the chronology of things. So I guess last response. But I think what happens is when clinicians like myself hear that phrase, they do think first response. And so they go, oh, I work with firefighters or I work with Joe Blow, who's the police officer. I know what the response, what the responder community is about.
00:10:30
Speaker
um But they're not the same. They're not the same. A couple weeks ago, I was doing a FPPS presentation to the students in the Nova Scotia class, which is where I went to school.
00:10:43
Speaker
um And one of them said, yeah, I went to see a therapist. And she so when I said, do you have any experience with with funeral directors? She said, oh I work with police officers.
00:10:54
Speaker
And the student said to me, I don't i don't know that. I think she was hoping that would build a connection. But I just felt like she was telling me without telling me I don't know your world, right?
00:11:08
Speaker
In our world, in mental health, it's a very tricky thing to say to people, ah i have training or have background in kind of the the meat and bones of what you do for a living because there are a lot of training programs that focus on that, but there are none with last responders. So when someone says, you know, i know what you're you know, our business but is about, um I think a, where did you get your training or B maybe that person is a funeral director or maybe they grew up in a funeral home with parents who are funeral directors. So that would be very apropos to say that you understand, but, but there's nothing there's, we're not talking about this, this, um, And as far as the research goes, I mean, the research is even more scant. I think there's maybe under 50 actual peer-reviewed articles that the talk about the various aspects of how this work impacts the funeral director. But yeah they're just short-term like snapshots in time that that really, at the end of the day, all we could they're just exploratory. They're not really... um
00:12:21
Speaker
they're not really yeah ah conclusive about yeah a lot of So then it brings up another thing, another beef with me is that the funeral homes right now who are scrounging for mental health resources are borrowing borrowing very heavily from interventions or modalities that that have been created for other populations. And I'm not saying that it doesn't work or that there couldn't be some similarities there too, but i mean, ethically speaking, and in my line of work as a mental health professional, we can't just do best guesses around whether or not it's going to work.
00:13:03
Speaker
We have to know from what the research tells us whether or not these interventions. We do not only work for police and firefighters, but also work with funeral
Society's Denial of Death and Funeral Stigma
00:13:14
Speaker
directors, which there are not. I just finished my huge quantitative research class at Barrie, which was a full review of all the clinical literature around funeral directors and mental health, and there's absolutely zero.
00:13:29
Speaker
So it's a very under-researched area and a very ah
00:13:37
Speaker
A very interesting thing to look at, at least from my perspective. Yeah. No, I mean, it's absolutely it is. um I think it was our first season or maybe season two or whatever. We had Dr. Sarah Murphy on, you know, and talking about suicidology and stuff like that. And, um you know, she I know she regularly speaks at the national conferences and stuff. And um You know, she's talking about dealing with families with with suicides as well as she'll touch on, you know, mental health in the community and stuff like that. And, you know, so there there are people who are like yourself and like her and like Michael who are trying to.
00:14:18
Speaker
shine a light in the dark corner of the darkest corner of careers, I guess it's right. Like, you know, to me as somebody who, and I don't even know that I'm in the dark corner, honestly, I've spoken about mental health myself and several times back in Ireland as well. And, you know, I'm not a therapist and i can only speak to my own experiences. I'm not a funeral director, but I am. I work with families who are grieving and I've you know, being around bodies, I've worked in funeral homes and stuff like that. So I could, I'm always very clear. I can only speak to my own experiences.
00:14:55
Speaker
And I have developed, you know, a PDF um to help people because that's the thing. We all grieve differently. We heal differently. We, you know, we seek therapy differently. and We're not all the same. And so it's finding what works for you in order for you to live your life as healthily as you can. Right.
00:15:14
Speaker
So while I say that I'm on the periphery, like I don't, you know, i don't work in a funeral home and I don't, whether it's corporate or independently owned or, um you know, I don't work with the the human the physical body and stuff like that. So there are certain things that I can't speak to. um And so that's why I would say I'm on the periphery. But you know that corner and I do I think it's a dark corner of careers of you know it's it's not necessarily even brought up in career fairs like I you know do you see funeral directors of mortuary schools showing up career fairs the odd time but really it's I you know I know Carrie um Northy she has regularly does a career fair you know and she posts about on socials and But she's she's an advocate for the funeral profession and she speaks on social media about it.
00:16:05
Speaker
um And so to, you know, to her, that makes absolute sense. Why wouldn't they be at a career fair? But there's so many other funeral homes out there and I know they don't show up at their local schools career fair or anything like that. I know that they don't. And that's another way, A, for community involvement, B, you know, drawing back the curtains on this very dark aspect of life.
00:16:25
Speaker
um But we are, we're we're we're in a dark corner of the world where, you know, the light is not there. We're not talked about. I mean, during COVID, we gave ourselves the name, I think, The Last Responders, because we, you know, to to your point, but also we needed to be known as something, I think was the thing. It was kind of like, hey, hi, guys, we're here. Don't forget us.
00:16:51
Speaker
Right. yeah And, you know, I think we yeah, I think we can all agree agree that like, you know, is it the best term? Probably not. But because as you're so right, it does bundle us together. But I think there was a little part of us that was like, please bundle us with with you, people who are getting free Starbucks to keep your energy levels going and all the other things that were thrown at people because, you know, they were just so blatantly ignored during COVID and It's like the cleanup crew, you know, that comes in after you've had ah a party in your home or in a nightclub. The cleanup crew are like, you know, they're the sordid, dirty, dark.
00:17:26
Speaker
You don't know who they are Yeah. You know, you don't want to know. The research calls this the dirty work. yeah Yeah. It's heavily stigmatized, right?
00:17:37
Speaker
What a 100%. Even I feel like if you were a child and you wanted to sort of you put your hand up a class to say you wanted to become a funeral director or work in mortuary science in general, I feel like you would be polarized. I feel like you would be.
00:17:54
Speaker
you know, oh, you weirdo, like, why do you want to work with dead people? Like, what's that about? I can i can just definitely testify to that. You know, when I first started my business, Farewell Funeral Planners, back in Ireland, a hundred years ago, it feels like, um you know, it was what?
00:18:10
Speaker
Are you in insane? Like, why do you want to work with dead people? Well, first of all, I don't work with the dead people. I work with the living who are mourning the dead. But it's, you know, it's, yeah, it's massively stigmatized. And so we've got this dark, dirty, dusty corner and trying to get the world to shine a light in that corner is just so difficult. But yet...
00:18:33
Speaker
It is this corner is the most needed corner of life because guess what?
Support Systems for Funeral Professionals
00:18:41
Speaker
We're all dying. And I know the famous quote of there'll always be death and taxes or whatever it is.
00:18:47
Speaker
There won't always be taxes. Taxes can actually disappear if a decision is made. Right. Like and I know there's even talk right now of people not paying their taxes as we come into tax season. But taxes technically you you don't have to do you really you know if you choose to not um or whatever there is ways to evade tax death no no no so why are we so alienated
00:19:17
Speaker
we we're still, even though we've got things like ah grief cafes, or sorry, death cafes, I think the general trend has been a more openness towards death and what that means. But Jennifer, I think we're still death-denying... absolutely. Absolutely.
00:19:38
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, I'm writing my fourth book. I've been writing it for the last four years, ah six years, actually, I think it is. Good Lord. Anyway, I laugh because I wrote my first book in two months. I don't know why this one is paid so painstaking. But like my fourth book is is really it's it's more of a coaching style book. And it's basically about if we would just face the fact that we are dying, that we we live better and we love more. And, you know, yeah.
00:20:05
Speaker
Just that that fact of people who, you know, there's been research done where, you know, people go to a funeral. They are more aware of their mortality in the 24 hours and the week around that funeral because they've just had death smack them in the face. Even if it was just a neighbor or somebody that they weren't necessarily connected with, suddenly their mortality is is right there, right in front of their nose. And then it goes away again. um It's very fascinating. I mean, it really, really is the whole area. And it's just it's so unfortunate then for those that work in the space, because now you've got this you've got this corner that nobody wants to go into. and And then you've got these these people working hard in the corner. burnt out, not getting paid and enough, not getting any appreciation or gratitude and no one there to help them, no resources, which is where I do think funeral professional peer support is an incredible um resource for funeral homes, which is why I give my time freely to Michael and crew. And I know you do too. And and I wish more people would. And I know it's very difficult to give your time for free
00:21:11
Speaker
at all you know time time is nearly more valuable and than money per se but it's so important to support each other in these in these ways that we can you know FPPS or you know, professionals peer support, um, they offer, it's just an important, it's not the whole thing around mental health, but they offer such an important piece, which is the peer support and the, um, you know, the, the, the thing that people get when they get in a room and they start talking about things that they have in common and,
00:21:49
Speaker
ah Something literally happens to people's, what we call their attachment system. It shifts into a receive and and give type of ah yeah emotional arrangement, I guess.
Marketing and Business Challenges for FPPS
00:22:03
Speaker
And that stuff is yeah are the building blocks to healing, right? And here's the thing Michael's program is free.
00:22:10
Speaker
It's like there's there's no money. it involved in it. There's there's no commitment even asked for it. yeah um Yet it's so actually, I thought it would be all over the world, but well, it kind of is all over the world, but I thought it would be better known.
00:22:26
Speaker
Yes. In a sense. And it still surprises me that, you know, ah actually there was a research study that came out in 2025 in Ontario. It's a qualitative study about funeral directors. And in that research, they said someone they have quoted someone as saying, I know there's a group or something here somewhere in Canada or whatever. I don't know what it is, though. I'm like, that's that's FPPF. Yes. Yes. Call all the journal and and get a retraction or something.
00:23:00
Speaker
Well, you know, that is from a marketing point of view, that's where I would say that's a branding issue. That's a branding problem. So, you know, that that if your name is too long, which that is it is a very long name. If you're if your name is too long or it's not notable or like even myself, right? Like people will always remember the Glam Reaper.
00:23:20
Speaker
They don't even remember my name. yeah They're like, oh, it's the Glam Reaper. Hey, Glam. I'm like, hey, it's Jennifer. But sure. ah What if we destroy ourselves the lowering device?
00:23:33
Speaker
The lowering device. I mean... That's a funeral joke. That's terrible. and The way we have to amuse ourselves. But it's true. I mean, that's that is unfortunately... Here's the thing, though, Dwight.
00:23:50
Speaker
And you're you're touching the nail on the head a little bit. And this is my business degree coming out of me. But that is... And what you and I have talked about this because we are working on a conference... webinar, festival type affair around this coming in fall 2026. But it has to be all of the things. Like when I very, very first started in my business, I started in Ireland. My business was called Farewell Funeral Planners.
00:24:14
Speaker
Very simple, can be shortened to farewell, not a big deal. I did not have the budget to educate the public as to what the heck I was.
00:24:25
Speaker
People were like, if you're not a funeral director, what are you? If you're not a priest, what are you? We don't want understand. Why do we need you? And the thing is, you and that I still to this day, I get those questions, but I can explain it better. I have a lot more brand visibility. i have a lot more content out there. You know, people now know more what I do, but I didn't have the budget. I had zero budget. I was a startup business. I was in my 20s. You know mean? um And so if I could go back, yes, I would change the way I so i approached it completely. um And the reason, you know, so the business sort it didn't fold completely, but it, I went, I kind of came back to base and that's how my first book actually got written was because I was like, I have this information. How do I get it to the public when they're not willing to pay for this other person to help with a funeral? Because in Ireland, you go to the church and you go to your local funeral hall. So now I was offering to be this intermediary. Right. And so they were just like, I don't understand what's the point. So I didn't have the budget. I didn't have the marketing ability. I didn't have the say. I didn't have the connections, all of that sort of stuff, which is that is a bit of the problem.
00:25:35
Speaker
So funeral professional peer support has a marketing business operations problem. Because it doesn't have the budget behind it. it people It's free, which it should be free, and it's amazing that it's free, but there's also that perception of is it's free, it's crap.
00:25:52
Speaker
it People think if it's free, it's crap. If it's $100 million, dollars then oh my God, it must be worth, whoo, holy moly, that must be good stuff, right? So there's that perception, number one. Then there's also, that we don't have the funeral professional peer support, doesn't have the budget.
00:26:09
Speaker
to advertise, to create videos, to pay people to do content. Because guys, guess what? I'm doing this podcast. You're sitting down with me for free. I'm here for free, right? This is an hour of our time to do this podcast. There's no sponsors on this podcast. This is a hobby to me. And people love the podcast and I love that they love it. But like, it's it's my love.
Reluctance in Mental Health Discussions in the Funeral Industry
00:26:30
Speaker
out, you know, doing content. But people, you you need to pay people to do content. You need pay people to do your website, to do videos, to do, to manage calls, to set up calls, to set up guests, all of this sort of stuff.
00:26:44
Speaker
And Funeral Professional Peer Support does not have that purse. It has no money coming in. I mean, it has marginal, you know, I'm not saying it has no support, but it needs more weight behind it. um and and maybe some better do you ever wonder though too if that is not not just the branding piece but i'm i always go back to the mental health piece but do you ever wonder though like if that is also just a sign of the reluctance of maybe the the funeral service or the bereavement sector i call it
00:27:23
Speaker
last Yes. So 100%, I, I guess there's two issues I think funeral professional peer support has or anybody coming into this space. And we did have Caleb Wild on the podcast, I think two seasons ago as well. You know, he is great. you great Yes. Huge advocate in the mental health space and stuff like that. Great conversation with him too. I think we actually even had to break it up into two episodes, three episodes of the world. Yeah. It was yeah three. It was great because of three. Oh my God. Yeah.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's there's a business point of view. Like if you even and I had this conversation with somebody yesterday, so many funeral homeowners are not businessmen. And I'm using the word men because unfortunately still 80 percent, I think, are men.
00:28:07
Speaker
But they're not businessmen. They were grown up generationally, brought up generationally in the business and they were just handed it down, handed down. I have a degree in business and I still wouldn't call myself a great businesswoman. Like I learn every day, never mind every month and every year. I get schooled by people younger than me. I learn from people older than me. It's a constant learning process.
00:28:29
Speaker
But you have to be good at business and business to get your business out there. It is branding. It is marketing. It is social media nowadays. It is being online online. I have seen so many businesses that had, I'm not going to say the cure to cancer, I didn't work with these, but like I could see that there is businesses out there that have come up with the cure to cancer, but they haven't been able to get the funding, the awareness. um There's been some sort of, you know, maybe on the board or in the COO and the CEO couldn't get on and so it never made it to market, yada, yada, yada. There are so many facets behind every idea that when you see, when you walk into your supermarket and you see eggs or you see your leader of milk, that is not just happens to be on the shelf. There are so many business decisions made behind that. Right. And so and unfortunately, I've both worked in and witnessed businesses that should have changed the world and they've crumbled due to
Breaking the Silence: Need for External Input
00:29:30
Speaker
business failures. Right. So that is problem number one. But 100 percent problem number two is
00:29:37
Speaker
In some weird way, funeral directors are actually quite Irish. And I say that just because we, as Irish people, we don't talk about our emotions. It's our famous saying is be grand.
00:29:52
Speaker
Be grand. Your arm could be hanging off Dwight and an Irish person would still be like, sure, be grand. Don't I have another one? Like we are renowned for move on, pick up your britches and just keep on trucking. And I feel like that is the case in the funeral space.
00:30:09
Speaker
But again, kind of ties into the branding a little bit as well, because if it's not. If as a funeral professional, I see something advertised, if I don't feel safe, secure, that I can trust the source um and that I will get something from it, which all comes from the way we brand and market that event. I'm not going to join because here's the thing. And you and I talked about this it just before this call is our time. So freaking precious. Like I am like a bat out of hell. I am running around like a blue arse fly. 20, 24, seven. I feel like I just sleep and work, um which I love. I'm not complaining about it. i absolutely love. Well, I do complain because that's the Irish way. But like, I do love us You know, I wouldn't give it up tomorrow. um
00:30:55
Speaker
But we you have to, like like, I made time for this to chat with you because I see value in this. I want this conversation to happen. And so we have to, no matter what we advertise or how we advertise,
00:31:08
Speaker
and market these mental health things. It has to, like McDonald's. I mean, like, and I love, I got to use to like absorb so many of these like branding and business books back in the day. But like McDonald's, if you're hungry and you're driving down a highway and you've had a hell of a day, when you see those golden arches, you know exactly what you will get.
00:31:31
Speaker
right It might not be your five-course dinner, steak dinner that you want, you know, from Keens in New York or wherever your favorite steakhouse is, but you know what you're going to get. You know it's reliable. You can trust it. it's You know you know the the amount of public or private interaction you'll have. Like you can you can order a 10-course meal and eat it all in your car if you want, you know, if you're feeling that way, right? You know that there's that. And that's what that means. I've done that.
00:31:58
Speaker
Well, there you go. But when you think about that, Dwight, like that's how it feels like with your mental health, because especially if you're such a private person, you don't want to come on to a public forum and be airing.
00:32:10
Speaker
Well, this is my problem. It's free. OK. And yes, ah and and I've noticed from helping doing some of these webinars is we'll get three or four people and they'll come on. And they'll just about participate, but they won't say a whole lot. And it could be that they're just getting enough from the conversation. But I guarantee you each of those needs.
00:32:31
Speaker
An actual therapist of needs that one to one. you know, so it's. la humbu Let me give you just a little example of something that I learned in my social work. Well, my marriage and family therapy training We, you know, we'd often, I'd often see see families or couples, couples is the majority of the work work that i do when it comes to relationships. um We had a little saying that that the the problem that gets created in the system ah The system itself is unable to fix it.
00:33:04
Speaker
So what that means is like when couples or families come to me and they say, I've got this problem there, they're actually um kind of colluding with each other in their own unique way to keep the problem going. And the only way to change that is to interject like myself or, or, and often, often actually, well, in the, in the field of marriage and family therapy, usually couples deal with that by pulling children into their, their, their,
00:33:36
Speaker
their problems. But I look at funeral service and I go like in the industry and it the service itself, the the culture of silence is so pervasive that I don't even think we really fully comprehend just how much it is seeped into the way we interact, the way yeah our identities as funeral professionals are formed.
00:33:57
Speaker
All that stuff. weed And and i think I think, unfortunately, when you get a bunch of funeral directors trying to solve the issue of mental health, it doesn't go that far because we have been not to talk about it, right?
00:34:11
Speaker
And so we're always fighting fighting against that. People like you, Jennifer, though, who, like, you're not in that, in that, but you are kind of in that, but you're an outsider, which is actually a good thing. We need those people who are...
00:34:25
Speaker
not exactly in the system, but part of it, but then come in and and and talk about it and put words to it. Because I sometimes think we even struggle with our own particular language around mental yeah health and what that means.
00:34:39
Speaker
And I honestly think half the issues or problems that funeral directors face, they do need other professionals to help them solve it. Like including their attrition, no, sorry, not attrition, retention issue.
00:34:53
Speaker
and I don't think that funeral homes or associations are going to be able to solve that problem unless they invite other people like social workers or sociologists or psychologists to come in and say, hey, look at us, what we're doing, and and give us some feedback. But then, yeah in my experience, white men with feedback is usually not very good.
00:35:18
Speaker
dane with that hear yeah There's no room for for feedback and my ego to fit into this room. Right, exactly. yeah Yeah.
Future Initiatives and Wrap-Up
00:35:30
Speaker
And so that becomes a whole issue itself too, right?
00:35:34
Speaker
Yeah. It's a listen, it is a tricky, tricky area. And Dwight, I, for one, I'm grateful that you are in it, in it with me at least, or as much as I can give and help with you with everything. and But I'm glad that, you know, there are people like you and and others who are, know,
00:35:55
Speaker
shining a light in this dark corner and and doing what we can to help and we are gonna wrap this episode up and thank you so much for joining us Dwight I feel like we could chat about this for another hour maybe we'll maybe we'll do another mini podcast when um you know we're at our convention at our festival in in the fall in 2026 so watch this space if you are listening and you're a funeral professional and you're interested in any way shape or form And we hope to bring proper educated resources, research and development in this area to you. um And yeah, your feedback is always welcome. And I know, m Dwight, you've been conducting your own sort of market research and stuff. So we'll leave some links as well below for people to look you up on LinkedIn. And, you know, you can share with us some of those those important links for people to get feedback. That'd be great, I think.
00:36:50
Speaker
Can I just briefly share a few of the topics that we are out going to be looking at? in the week So we're we're not it's just not mental health. We're looking at how being a funeral director impacts your wider life. So we've got topics on neurodiversity for the funeral director.
00:37:06
Speaker
We've got, of course, grief. I'm going to talk about sex and relationships with with in the funeral. Those 50 shades, those 50 shades, right?
00:37:17
Speaker
But often, often actually people don't realize that there's a connection between sexual functioning and working in a in and and around existential like um services, like death off and dying and yeah and all that stuff.
00:37:34
Speaker
I'm going to talk about that. And I think we have a funeral doctor talking about finding joy in your work. And we hope we hope, I think there's someone lined up to talk about what? when you work in the funeral and when you have children, how that, how that ferrets out. So we're not, it's not just all about mental health. It's about living your life as a funeral director and and what's going on in the world around you.
00:37:59
Speaker
Very cool. Very cool. Well, guys, watch this space on that and stay tuned. and Dwight is the man with, he's the man with the info. And thank you so much for joining us. You're welcome. You're welcome. Happy St. Patrick's Day.
00:38:14
Speaker
Thank you.
00:38:18
Speaker
you