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Keys to Service: The Vital and Active Role of the Funeral Professional

By: Todd Van Beck, Director of Continuing Media Education, John A Gupton College, Nashville, TN

Monday, December 3, 2018

In bygone days in our profession there was a method

of “arranging” a funeral which was called “the indirect

method” of counseling. At the core of this funeral

arranging approach was that the funeral director

played an entirely passive role in the decision making

processes that the “family” was engaged in. The results

of this approach to the funeral interview was that it did

not work, very well. One funeral director who was a

disciple of this approach once told me, “When I make

arrangements I don’t even want the family to notice that

I am in the room.” I cannot disagree with this type of

funeral interviewing approach more for this is another

example of black and white rule making, in which the

funeral professional is making all the rules – doesn’t

the families feelings and wishes need to be involved,

need to be taken account of, need to be respected? I

believe they do.

Just imagine this scenario. The bereaved family has

seen one or two caskets in their entire lives. Now, today

the door is opened and they are looking at twenty-one

caskets or 40 urns, or 20 keepsakes and they are in the

room alone – absolutely alone and on their own. Do

you think this type of situation creates a vulnerable and

possibly high risk client situation?

Analogous to this, for a naive fellow like me would be

my wanting to buy an airplane. The airplane company

representative opens up a door to the airplane hangar

that has twenty one new airplanes for sale and then

turns heel and leaves. For a limited guy like me, well I

don’t have a chance!

The reason the indirect approach flopped so many

years ago is that while some funeral professionals were

attracted to it, the collapse of the indirect approach

came because our valued client families did not like it.

The indirect approach to helping I believe was created

because of our professions long standing phobia

concerning any type of criticism whatsoever, and

particularly our high alert sensitivity concerning being

criticized about being a “high pressured sales person”

or worst or all “taking advantage of the bereaved.” I

understand our professions sensitivity to this, and

Jessica Mitford made hay in the sunshine using and

abusing this theme. However her book was published

51 years ago and still our addiction to wanting to

please absolutely everyone in everything all the time,

which is utterly impossible for any human being to

accomplish, still haunts our great profession (but this

theme is fodder for another article).

I personally would like to suggest that the reason the

indirect approach to helping a family didn’t work

is that it relegated the funeral professional to an

exaggerated passive role, and I have concluded that

bereaved client’s are not attracted to passive funeral

director helping.

I do not see the funeral professional as the interviewer

or as a presence in the funeral experience as serving

a passive role in the least. On the contrary, I perceive

the funeral professional as staying active at all times.

I am not implying that he/she should talk a great deal,

but I am saying that he/she should make their presence

and interest continuously felt – throughout the entire

funeral home experience, not just the arrangement

interview. The funeral interviewer is ideally active in

revealing to the client family that they are indeed an

interested person in the welfare of the client family.

Being too passive does not have enough energy about it

to convey this important communication. In fact being

passive is in reality as dry as a piece of unbuttered toast.

The question then is not whether the funeral

professional will be of assistance, help or counsel. In

all sincerity of purpose is not the larger question

this: Will my assistance, help and counsel be based

on active wisdom and care, on active insight and

compassion, and on active trust and respect? The

operative word here is active.

Primary to this vital role is that the funeral interviewer

is and acts as a genuine person. As funeral interviewers

we contribute of ourselves and our professional

knowledge to help the client family, and not simply to

display our intellect or our splendid personal qualities.

The funeral interviewer reveals what they themselves

see and understands, what they think the client family

is thinking and feeling, in order to help him/her look

deeper and try harder to reach his/her inner self to

make the type of once in a lifetime decisions that offer

two priceless gifts in taking the journey through the

valley of the shadow of death: Peace of mind and

the feeling that one has done the right thing. The

combined psychological health of these two feelings is

absolutely priceless; no dollar sign can ever be attached

to this – never!

Coming right down to it in our ongoing quest for

substance and meaning, what do funeral professionals

actually bring to the helping interview? Essentially, we

bring our knowledge, experience, professional skills,

the information we possess, and the resources at our

command, and above all else a genuine committed love

of the profession in which we serve. It follows then

that the continuous funeral student (going considerably

beyond Mortuary College and the National Board)

actively continually learns about every single aspect

of the funeral service profession.

This type of quality learning time will result in creating

the most effective professional who by the results of

their dedication to lifelong learning will possess the

most knowledge. This professional funeral person will

then be able to assist family clients by be offering and

suggesting creative ceremonial experiences, creative

help and counsel which will result in a tangible

enhancement of our bereaved clients arriving at wise,

valid, and satisfactory decisions.

Here are some suggestions to help us stay active in

the experience of the funeral interview and funeral

service in general. Ponder these, and add to them. Your

time spent thinking about these four points will prove

helpful in the long term.

First: Funeral professionals use themselves first

and foremost. If the funeral professional is calm,

understanding and clearly concerned as well as

obviously wanting to be helpful they set the stage for

the response of those being served.

Second: Funeral professionals are usually and

fortunately where the action is. Doing something

constructive is an important way of moving people

through a crisis. Inner balance can be sustained by outer

action. Having people do things will help to confirm

reality, express feelings, and gain group support is

never a passive experience, these important funeral

standards are always in the active tense.

Third: Funeral professionals help the expression

of feelings in the helping interview. The funeral

professional is usually present when feelings are

intense. The funeral professional within the save

harbor of the funeral interview and overall funeral

experience can provide the personal attitude and

social atmosphere within which the appropriate deep

grief feelings can be expressed and most importantly

accepted and understood.

Fourth: The funeral professional also has quick access

to items to memorialize creativity which can help the

mourner’s experience deeper expression and find

deeper significance in the selected services and goods

which are decided upon and invested in.

The funeral professional/interviewer/arranger (last

week I learned a new professional designation

“Remembrance Counselor”) who is keenly aware of

these four simple points and who uses them in an active,

not passive way will find additional foundations of

worth in their communication with the client families.

Bringing yourself, being in the thick of the action,

allowing for the expression of feelings, and having

at your immediate access valuable remembrance and

memorial items is a wonderful way to further assist

our families we are privileged to service, and that is

the goal, is it not – to work to further assist our client

families to the best of our abilities.

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