ABSTRACT
The day-to-day reality of hospice social work requires a practitioner to draw from multiple theoretical frameworks and blend them together, sometimes over the course of several individual patient or client contacts, sometimes within the same visit. It would not be uncommon to utilize family systems, client-centered, crisis, and existential theories within a single visit to a patient and their family. This semi-auto-ethnographic account of a typical day in hospice social work will introduce practice fusion as a response to the complex and often unpredictable needs of the dying patient and their caregivers. With a working knowledge of the history, philosophy, mechanics, benefits, and limits of various schools of yoga, a fusion practice meets the varying needs that arise in daily life and in the author's profession as a hospice social worker. The dying process disrupts the state of equilibrium within a patient and their caregiving system, making tenants of crisis theory important to hospice work.
