The Practice of Elderhood in Connected Community – Free Training with Paul Browde and Hedy Schleifer
There are moments in therapy, caregiving, and life when another person is facing fear, loss, illness, or change—and nothing you know can fix what they are experiencing.
The Practice of Elderhood in Connected Community: Fully Embracing the Journey brings Paul Browde and Hedy Schleifer together for an exploration of presence, elderhood, and what it means to remain connected when another person is moving through an experience you cannot change for them.
Through ideas including “The Space Between,” the bridge, and the practice of becoming a visitor in another person’s world, Paul and Hedy offer a relational way of approaching aging that begins with curiosity, connection, and a willingness to be present.
Whether you are a therapist, coach, caregiver, or simply examining your own relationship with aging, this free event invites a deeper look at how elderhood can be entered in connection rather than navigated alone.
Why Attend “The Practice of Elderhood in Connected Community: Fully Embracing the Journey”
As a young psychiatrist working in a nursing home in the Bronx, Paul Browde encountered an older woman whose fear could not be reached through another framework or technique. The experience became a lasting lesson in something more fundamental: presence.
That lesson sits at the heart of this event. There are neighborhoods in another person’s world that we cannot fix or change. Paul and Hedy explore what becomes possible when the goal shifts from solving another person’s experience to learning how to visit it with attention, curiosity, and connection.
They also invite you to consider elderhood as more than a demographic label or a process of decline. Their work approaches it as an inner threshold—a meaningful stage of becoming that can hold wisdom, possibility, purpose, loss, change, and questions that are difficult to carry alone.
Who This Is For
This event is for people who find themselves accompanying others through aging, illness, loss, fear, and changing life circumstances—and who want to understand what connection can look like when there is no simple solution to offer.
It is equally relevant for people examining their own relationship with aging. Paul and Hedy bring attention to the ways our fears, assumptions, and personal responses can quietly enter the room with us, whether we are supporting a client, caring for someone we love, or encountering our own changing life.
- Therapists sitting with aging, loss, illness, or change in their clinical work
- Coaches supporting people through meaningful life transitions
- Caregivers accompanying loved ones through changing circumstances
- People exploring their own relationship with aging and elderhood
- Those interested in relational practices rooted in curiosity and connection
- Anyone drawn to exploring elderhood in the context of connected community
What You’ll Learn
Paul and Hedy begin by reframing elderhood as an inner threshold rather than simply a category defined by age. This opens a different conversation about becoming, wisdom, possibility, purpose, and the personal meaning of aging.
You’ll also explore the relational practice beneath their work: “The Space Between,” the bridge, and what it means to become a visitor in another person’s world. The emphasis is on staying connected without assuming that another person’s fear, grief, loss, or changing experience must first be fixed.
The event also turns the lens inward, asking how your own relationship with aging may influence what you make room for with clients, loved ones, and yourself—and why practices of this kind can take on a different quality when they are held in community.
- How to understand elderhood as an inner threshold rather than only a demographic label
- The meaning of “The Space Between” in Paul and Hedy’s relational work
- The bridge and the practice of becoming a visitor in another person’s world
- How to remain connected when someone is experiencing something you cannot fix for them
- How your own relationship with aging may shape interactions with clients and family
- Why community matters when meeting the questions, losses, transitions, and gifts of elderhood
About Paul Browde, MD & Hedy Schleifer, BA, MA
Paul Browde, MD, is a psychiatrist, storyteller, couples guide, and educator who integrates narrative and relational practices in mental health and personal growth. Trained in medicine and acting, he has practiced psychiatry in Manhattan for more than thirty years. He is also a co-founder of Narativ Inc., a former Columbia Narrative Medicine faculty member, and co-creator and performer of the unscripted storytelling show Two Men Talking.
Hedy Schleifer, BA, MA, is a master relationship builder, motivational speaker, and founder of Encounter-centered Transformation (EcT). Her work focuses on helping people cultivate relational intelligence, maturity, and meaningful connection. She has decades of professional experience and has taught EcT internationally.
Together, Paul and Hedy bring storytelling, relational practice, deep listening, and the experience of human connection to an exploration of elderhood that asks not simply how aging can be managed, but how it can be met together.
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Join Paul Browde and Hedy Schleifer to explore the practice of visiting another person’s world with curiosity, presence, and connection.
- Sep 01 2026
- Expired!
- 8:00 am - 9:30 am
More Info
- Worldwide
Organizer
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The Academy of Therapy Wisdom
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Website
https://spiritualgrowthevents.com/harm-reduction-summit
