Beth O’Brien
Beth has a heartfelt gift for guiding individuals, families, and friends through the tender seasons of death and dying. With compassion, she creates space for soulful conversations, meaningful rites, and ceremonies that bring comfort and connection.
Beth’s unique approach blends her deep understanding of these personal, transformative journeys with a practical awareness of their healing potential. With a background in business, she also recognises that end-of-life information is often not widely shared, and she is passionate about bridging that gap in our communities.
The heartbreaking stillbirth of Beth’s friend’s baby over 20 years ago forever changed the path of her career. At the time, Beth was working as a marriage celebrant when her friend asked her to conduct the funeral.
Feeling unsure if she was ready for such a profoundly emotional role, Beth reached out to a mentor for guidance. With their support, she created a heartfelt ceremony that touched everyone present. The family, friends, and funeral director praised the moving service and encouraged Beth to consider expanding her career.
Back then, civil celebrants were still relatively uncommon, particularly for funerals, which were usually conducted as traditional religious ceremonies. Her experience served as a source of inspiration to establish Australian Celebrations Training in 2003, a specialised registered training organisation for marriage and funeral celebrants.
As Beth continued her work as a celebrant, she began conducting more funerals and developed a deep interest in understanding how people navigate grief, bereavement, and end-of-life planning. She became passionate about supporting those dying and their loved ones through these tender and challenging times.
For more than two decades, Beth has dedicated herself to studying, researching, and working with those facing death or dealing with loss, grief, and bereavement. She is a Certified Thanatologist, holding international accreditation with the Association for Death Education and Counselling. Beth was also Queensland’s first humanist hospital chaplain (now known as the spiritual care team) and continues to support individuals as a grief and bereavement counsellor in her psychotherapy practice.
Beth has always had a natural ability to support others through their grief and is passionate about helping people feel more comfortable talking about death. Throughout her work, she noticed a real gap in conversations around dying, especially for those nearing the end of life. She believes avoiding “the elephant in the room” only increases anxiety for everyone involved.
Beth explains that people who are attracted to becoming End-of-Life Companions often find their own unique focus. While some may assist with information about wills or advance health directives, explaining the dying process, assisting families with information about death care, having spiritual conversations, and preparing for post-death rituals, she believes each student will bring their own special companionship to people they work with. Beth personally feels most fulfilled by helping clients reflect on their lives, record their legacies, and have meaningful, heartfelt and spiritual conversations.
To Beth, End-of-Life Planning is about more than just preparing for death—it’s about helping people live fully and peacefully until their final moments. She’s also deeply committed to ensuring that those left behind feel supported and cared for during this emotional journey. You can read more by the tab Beth’s qualifications”.
My worldview and that of others
I have always been deeply fascinated by how people perceive the world and their place within it. As a teenager, I came to realize that Christianity did not resonate with my way of engaging with life and the world around me. This realisation sparked a lifelong intellectual and experiential exploration journey as I sought to define the values that truly mattered to me. Long before I became a civil marriage celebrant, I held the conviction that life could be cherished, and profound meaning could be found outside the framework of organised religion. This belief continues to shape my understanding of connection, purpose, and how we honour the human experience.
Australia is steadily becoming more secular, with 40% of Australians reporting no religion in the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics Census (2021). Many individuals might identify as Humanists if they were familiar with the philosophy and its core values—a trend observed during professional development classes for civil marriage celebrants when exploring the topic. To learn more about Humanism, visit www.humanistaustralia.org.
My spirituality – Humanist
I welcome anyone’s faith, culture and beliefs as their right to enjoy. The Humanist Institute has an ethos that I find warm and succinct, “We envision a world in which every individual’s worth is respected, and human freedom and behaving responsibly are natural aspirations.”
It’s challenging to capture the entirety of my thoughts on this topic in just a few sentences—perhaps because such reflections never truly rest, especially when contemplating the beauty of humanity and our world. Over the years, I have met, studied alongside, and loved remarkable individuals on their own journeys to explore the question, “Is there a God?”—a deeply personal quest for anyone to undertake. What I do know is that life holds profound mystery and magic, and it is up to each of us to strive to live with purpose, kindness, and harmony, both within ourselves and with others, as we navigate our paths through this life.
Humanist Pastoral Care/Chaplaincy
In 2016-2017, I volunteered as a member of the Humanist Spiritual Care Team at Gold Coast University Hospital and Robina Hospital. Today, I continue to support individuals in the community nearing the end of their lives, offering care rooted in a humanistic approach. During this experience, I recognised the limited support available for families facing perinatal loss and was inspired to further study and research this area.
During the COVID-19 years, I pursued a postgraduate qualification in Humanistic and Existential Pastoral Care from the UK. This program was a transformative experience, seamlessly integrating my counselling expertise, humanistic spirituality, and deep curiosity about how people navigate their life journeys and address existential questions that arise along the way.
Perinatal Loss and Reproductive Grief
For many years, Beth has conducted numerous funerals for families grieving the loss of an infant. Through this experience, along with learning about maternity and NICU wards in hospitals, her desire to support parents grew, leading her to integrate this work into her psychotherapy practice.
As a mother who has personally experienced pregnancy loss, Beth deeply empathizes with parents navigating reproductive challenges. With a background in studying and practicing maternal and infant mental health, she hopes to help bridge the gap in care for those facing miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility, or traumatic births.
Through her experience leading perinatal grief support groups, Beth has witnessed their profound impact in providing emotional, psychological, and social support to those navigating pregnancy or infant loss. While online resources and groups offer valuable connections, Beth believes there is a unique depth to in-person gatherings. In a confidential and supportive setting, participants can openly share their experiences, fostering a deep understanding and connection that enhances their healing journey.
Life as a Teacher
Since 1982 I have been a trainer/teacher in some way. I started firstly with teaching a method of hydrotherapy to assist people with physical and/or intellectual disabilities. In the mid 80’s I began working in marketing universities and I studied my first degree in Business. During the following years I taught at colleges or universities predominantly in a part time role in business subjects.
From 2003-2024, I designed the curriculum and was a trainer and assessor in my own training company, Australian Celebrations Training. This company offered training for marriage and funeral celebrants’ qualifications. Some of these courses offered grief and loss training, which became a passion, so in a large way, it brought me to the path I now find myself on.
When I teach or facilitate discussions on loss and grief, I am constantly reminded of the saying, “We are all teachers.” Over the years, I have gained so much wisdom and insight from others, and when I share those thoughts and experiences with someone else, it feels as though they come from more than just me. It’s as if all those teachers—past and present—are working alongside me, guiding and supporting the healing of others.
Funeral Celebrancy
I designed and performed my first funeral 25 years ago and since then have celebrated many services for very special people. Whilst I find all the ceremonies rewarding, there is something about sacredness of funerals that I find deeply fulfilling. I have always loved listening to stories and writing stories. So, I guess it makes sense that I can enjoy both as a ritual maker.
It always amazes me that you can meet a family for less than a week, under grieving conditions, and how they trust you to listen to them, design and perform the ceremony, for someone that means so much to them. I don’t know that there are too many opportunities in our careers to be so intimate with a new acquaintance. Performing funerals that dignify the life that was led, and support the people mourning to begin their healing, is a treasured position for me as a funeral celebrant.
When a funeral ceremony or a memorial service is underpinned with the storytelling of a life lived it has an individual and powerful presence. Listening to families voice their stories of that person, is always illuminating and often inspiring. For many years I specialised in infants’ funerals which gave me a differing insight into grief. In my work with young families I have also performed many rituals for beautiful babies that were miscarried. It has been my great honour to have these families teach me how to support other families with this need for ceremony.
I became so enthralled with the storytelling at a funeral that happens in a person’s autobiography – the eulogy – that I decided to study and become a Personal Historian. People love to hear real stories about real people, and often family and friends hear stories they never heard before about someone they love. I believe that everyone has a story and every story matters.
Death Education and Death Literacy
Death education provides knowledge about death and grief.
As a thanatologist, Beth has created educational materials to help both community members and students explore death, dying, grief, and bereavement. By deepening their understanding of the emotional, social, cultural, and medical aspects of death, individuals can feel more empowered to make informed decisions for themselves and their loved ones. In 2013, Beth launched Brisbane’s first Death Café, which further highlighted the lack of accessible information on death and dying within the community.
Beth has delivered lectures over 3 years to Compassionate Friends (Bereaved parents’ support group) and Queensland Positive People (helping people live with HIV).
Death Literacy is the practical application of that knowledge, helping people actively engage with death-related experiences in their lives and communities.
Death literacy is a person’s ability to navigate and actively engage with end-of-life matters, including the practical, emotional, and social aspects of death. Access to clear and supportive information empowers individuals—whether they are caregivers, those facing their own end-of-life journey, or those supporting others through loss. When people can talk about death openly, they build the confidence and capacity to support dying, death, and bereavement within their communities.
Animal Companion Celebrant and Doula Training
Today, Beth’s work with bereaved animal lovers combines her background in counselling with respect for the bond people have with their animals and her own experiences of healing from the loss of both human and animal loved ones.
Extensive research has shown that the bond between people and companion animals enhances human health and happiness. A loving relationship with a companion animal provides physical, social, and emotional benefits, enriching not only individuals but also families and society. Over the past few decades, companion animals have become increasingly integrated into our lives and homes. Their companionship helps us navigate the modern world, offering support that balances the shifts in traditional family structures.
Australia has one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world. About 69% of Australian households own pets, and there are more than 28.7 million pets in Australia (2022).
Unfortunately, the death of companion animals is trivialised in the Australian community to some extent. However, we believe this significant loss needs to be honoured, and the grieving person/s needs to be acknowledged. We hope that the Animal Companion Celebrants and Animal Companion Doulas will be part of that change in social isolation.
Some say animals are the best teachers, showing us how to be loyal and love unconditionally. That understanding and acceptance nurture the animal-human bond. Grief is indifferent to the species lost.
This training was the first within Australia, but the vital relationship between animals and people has seen the need for a course of this importance.