Stan Goldberg

Stan Goldberg is a Professor Emeritus of Communicative Disorders at San Francisco State University. For over 25 years he taught, provided therapy, researched, and published in the area of information processing, loss, and change. Stan has published seven books, written numerous articles and delivered over 100 lectures and workshops throughout the United States, Latin America and Asia. He is currently working on a novel and a book on loss. He also consults on issues of personal, institutional, and corporate change. He has served as an expert legal witness in high-profile court cases and is a consulting editor for Oxford University Press. Stan leads workshops for adults whose lives were suddenly and traumatically changed. He serves at the bedside hospice volunteer in San Francisco for Pathways Home Health Care and Hospice. and is a featured columnist in the Hospice Volunteers of America quarterly magazine. His published magazine articles, essays, poems, and plays have received numerous national and international writing awards. Written with humor and sensitivity, they have appeared in magazines ranging from Psychology Today to Horse and Rider. His latest book is Lessons for the Living: Stories of Forgiveness, Gratitude, and Courage at the End of Life http://lessonsfortheliving.blogspot.com. It’s a memoir of his six years as a bedside hospice volunteer; an experience that taught him to accept his cancer and live fully, no matter how long that might be. He can be contacted at stan@stangoldbergwriter.com. Numerous downloadable articles appear on his website www.stangoldbergwriter.com

Articles:

Deciding to Let Go

Recent discussions of whether California Senator Dianne Feinstein should retire ignore one of the most important elements that affect decisions about retiring: The willingness to assume a new identity. Identity is an amalgam of one’s history, beliefs, and behaviors. A significant portion of the mix involves one’s job or profession. Eliminate it–as suggested to Senator Feinstein—and you become a new person. In this article, I list five questions to ask yourself if you contemplate retiring or are dissatisfied with how your retirement is going. When It’s Time to Let Go Have you ever asked yourself when is it time to […]

9 Ways to Prepare for Coronavirus Losses

Anger will do little to prepare us for the losses the coronavirus creates. The Tibetans have a saying, “You can throw hot coals at your enemies but you will burn your hands.” While anger can find an outlet for the immorality of national leaders on November 3rd, I and millions of others will need something more than a vote against Trump for the grief we will experience. There is little comfort in righteous indignation. I found solace through lessons about living and loss from patients I served for ten years in hospice. Here are nine I found useful. Hopefully, you […]

Joyful Aging

When I see commercials on how to recreate the body I had at 20-years-of-age by applying a magical cream that isn’t sold in any regulated stores (but is free to me for the next ninety minutes if I agree to receive 324 months of the stuff), sit back in my rocking chair with wrinkles and flab, delighted I learned to adapt to a normal phase of living. We are born, develop, reflect, age, and die. I don’t think anyone has found a way to extend the process, no matter how much we wish for a different outcome, the products we […]

Aging and Identity: We’re Not Dead Yet

In Aging and Identity Part I, I maintained the role of identity may be critical in understanding how we react to aging; including the many desperate decisions we make, such as an obsession with appearing youthful, painful tummy tucks, and foolishly engaging in a multitude of activities our bodies are no longer capable of doing. In Aging and Identity Part II, I suggested a few strategies for dealing with our changing identities. In this final article, I’ll offer suggestions for those who are confused how to deal with us “older” folks. We’re Not Dead Yet We may be changing, but […]

When Illness Takes Away Your Pleasures

How we view ourselves—our identity—is based on what we do, the roles we play, activities we enjoy, affiliations we have, the values that structure our lives, our abilities, and relationships. When a meaningful part of a loved one’s life is lost, their self-perception and place in the world may change. Losing something that gave meaning to life is often a bi-product of chronic and terminal illnesses. It can be the daily jog for someone who has run for forty years, the loss of hearing for someone who played the cello her entire life, or the gradual memory loss of a […]

When She Says, ‘I Have Cancer,’ What Do You Say?

There are 12 million of us in the United States who live with cancer and the number rises every year as researchers find new drugs to extend our lives. Some of us hide our diagnosis even from trusted loved ones, while others freely share it for a variety of reasons. I’m sure at least once in everyone’s life they will learn that a close friend or family member has cancer. How will you respond when you hear, “I have cancer?” Often, there is an awkward moment when people hear someone is living cancer—or worse, expects to eventually die from it. […]

Couple Use Last Six Months to Express Their Love

I would sit for long periods with Jim in his kitchen when Lisa slept. He was a large man who had laid bricks his entire life, until he retired, five years before Lisa received a terminal prognosis of congestive heart failure. Unlike her husband, Lisa was very small, and, in the words of Jim, “the disease shrank her to the size of a tiny bird.” “Neither of us is into the touchy-feely stuff,” Jim said to me one day. “Lisa and I have been married for almost fifty years. Before we knew she was dying, I don’t remember the last […]

How Can I Be a Compassionate Caretaker?

If you are not already a caregiver for someone with a chronic or terminal illness, statistics say you will be. It’s estimated that there are at least 45 million family caregivers in the United States and that number will keep rising as people live longer. You should assume that at least once in your life, you will be asked or feel obligated to provide care for someone who can no longer care for him or herself. It may be occasional and for a short period of time, or constant and last for years. The question asked by millions every day […]

Remembering NYC a Week After 9/11

“Daddy, please come,” my daughter said on September 11th. Together, we watched the towers fall. Me, from the safety of my San Francisco home. She, from an office building in Rockefeller Plaza, wondering if her friend survived. In August, I had scheduled a trip to visit her on September 18th. Nationwide, the planes were grounded and I didn’t know when the airports would reopen. But I knew I had get to New York. Mostly to give support to my daughter, but having grown up only100 miles from New York City, I felt an affinity not only with the city, but […]

‘Shoot Me, Please’: The Right to Die

He pleaded with me to shoot him and the request wasn’t figurative. He was my first patient as a hospice volunteer in San Francisco. That moment, eight years ago, still haunts me. Not because I was confronted with a real life decision of immense consequences, but rather because I knew that I couldn’t honor his request, nor relieve the enormous psychological pain he was enduring—one that lasted for the next few months until he died. It was the first and only time I was so directly confronted by the issue of a person’s right to die—from the person who wanted […]

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