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 Thompson, 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 and why people in death care carry their own grief as well
[03:18] Dwight’s Full Circle Journey from funeral directing and embalming into psychotherapy
[06:18] “That’s Me” and the moment Dwight saw his own story in other funeral directors’ mental health struggles
[06:49] A $274 Paycheck and a Therapist Who Didn’t Understand the reality of seeking help without being understood
[08:37] An Alarming Gap in Training and why funeral directors are still missing from mental health education
[09:36] First Responders vs Funeral Directors and why the comparison does not fully fit
[12:13] Borrowed Solutions and Missing Research in funeral directors’ mental health care
[14:31] The Dark Corner of Careers and why funeral service remains overlooked and misunderstood
[17:58] Death Care as Dirty Work and the stigma attached to working around death
[19:38] Why Are We Still So Death Denying and what that says about society’s discomfort with mortality
[21:20] The Healing Power of Peer Support and why shared experience matters so much
[23:26] A Branding Problem and why valuable support can still go unnoticed
[27:28] Business Culture and Silence in the funeral sector and how all three affect mental health support
[33:02] The System Cannot Fix Itself and why outside expertise may be needed
[36:26] What Comes Next and the wider conversations still needed in funeral service
Connect with Dwight Thompson at:
Website: https://www.funeralpeersupport.ca/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwight-thompson-msw-rsw-rmft-s-31160621a/
Email: dwight@ottawapsychotherapyservices.ca
Connect with Jennifer Muldowney (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
