Full Course Description

Navigating Tomorrow’s Loss

Many mental health practitioners feel ill-prepared to meet the needs of their grieving clients, especially those experiencing anticipatory grief. This workshop will help you better understand the complexities of anticipatory grief counseling, including common barriers and practical considerations. The role of sustained hope at end-of-life will be explored, and strategies for engaging in sensitive conversations will be discussed. Practical anticipatory grief interventions and meaning-making activities will be provided. Participants will also gain tools to support clients after death losses, including preparing children and adults to attend memorial services and return to work or school. 

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Apply knowledge of anticipatory and preparatory grief to clients experiencing impending losses.  
  2. Employ creative legacy-building and anticipatory grief interventions for children, adolescents, adults, and families. 
  3. Facilitate developmentally appropriate conversations about illness, death, and loss to promote healthy coping. 

Outline

Introduction  

  • Overview of Anticipatory and Preparatory Grief  
  • Importance of Understanding Their Constructs  
  • Risks and Limitations 

Anticipatory and Preparatory Grief: Concepts and Applications  

  • Definition and Characteristics  
  • Application to Death and Non-Death Losses  

The Role of Sustained Hope at End-of-Life  .

  • Definition and Significance  
  • Impact on End-of-Life Experience  

Anticipatory Grief Reactions Across Age Groups  

  • Children, Adolescents, Adults  

Engaging in Sensitive Conversations About Anticipatory Grief  

  • Importance of Communication  
  • Tips for Discussing End-of-Life Matters  

Preparing for Memorial Services and Return to Normal Life  

  • Supporting Attendees B. Strategies for Reintegrating into Daily Life  

Legacy-Building Interventions and Meaning-Making  

  • Definition of Legacy-Building B. Techniques for Promoting Meaning-Making  

Conclusion  

  • Summary  
  • Application of Strategies in Practice 

Target Audience

  • Psychiatrists   
  • Psychologists  
  • Counselors   
  • Social Workers  
  • Marriage and Family Therapists   
  • Nurses   
  • Physicians  
  • Other Mental Health Professionals 

Copyright : 04/25/2024

Disenfranchised Grief

When it comes to treating grief in clients from diverse cultures, the last thing you want to do is minimize their experiences or avoid acknowledging them. Lack of support and validation can lead them to experience Disenfranchised Grief, which will only complicate treatment and prolong healing. Led by Tiffani Dilworth, LCPC, FT, this session will illuminate interactions and events connecting members of diverse subcultures and immigrants to Disenfranchised Grief and will give you an eclectic approach to identifying validating language to better help your clients. 

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Differentiate disenfranchised grief types to inform the clinician’s choice of treatment interventions 
  2. Examine common triggers of disenfranchised grief in diverse subcultures to improve treatment outcomes 
  3. Identify migratory grief experiences in immigrants as it relates to case conceptualization 
  4. Utilize validating language for disenfranchised grief symptom management in session 

Outline

Categories of Disenfranchised Grief 

Ways subcultures experience Disenfranchised Grief 

  • Minimizing 
  • Gaslighting 

Research on common Immigrant experiences that can lead to Migratory Grief

  • Immigrants vs. Refugees  
  • Acculturation     
  • Economic Uncertainty 
  • Ethnic Discrimination  
  • Resources-Mental Health Challenges     
  • Migratory Grief 
  • Migration Trauma  

An eclectic approach to identify validating language to combat Disenfranchised Grief 

The value of a healthy support system 

Target Audience

  • Psychiatrists   
  • Psychologists  
  • Counselors   
  • Social Workers  
  • Marriage and Family Therapists   
  • Addiction Counselors  
  • Nurses   
  • Physicians  
  • Other Mental Health Professionals 

Copyright : 04/26/2024

Traumatic Grief: Neuroscience-Based Therapy Tools for Transforming Loss into Meaningful Recovery

Enhance your therapeutic toolkit with interventions that bridge the latest research in neuroplasticity and trauma treatment with the deeply human experience of grief, loss, and trauma.

Traumatic grief is a far cry from what many consider “normal” grief. Its roots run deeper, its pain more piercing, and its resolution often more elusive.

As clinicians, it’s our role to understand and hold space for its complexity – its ability to entangle itself deep within the human mind, intertwining with a client’s fundamental sense of self and reality – and tailor our care accordingly. But where do we start? How do we help clients in such complex, deep grief?

Start here, with Dr. Kate Truitt, seasoned applied neuroscientist and clinical psychologist, for a guided exploration into the science of loss, the neurological foundations of traumatic grief that can often override healing – and then learn strategies you can use right away with clients to get them on a path for healing and growth.

Watch Dr. Truitt for a 6-hour recording filled with demonstrations, guided practices, skill building and hands-on strategies, so your clients can:

  • Harness neuroplasticity to foster resilience as they find meaning within and healing from the loss
  • Discover pathways to posttraumatic growth, building strength and purpose from their grief and reshaping their future with hope
  • Set boundaries that prioritize self-care and healthy coping skills during their grief journey
  • Cultivate a compassionate relationship with themselves, nurturing self-understanding and self-care as they process their grief.
  • Don’t miss this unique opportunity to enrich your trauma-informed therapeutic toolkit

Program Information

Outline

Models of Grief: Expanding Beyond Kübler-Ross

  • Grief is multidimensional: cognitive, emotional, and social
  • Meaning Making: the 6th stage of grief
  • Challenging traditional assumptions about grief progression
  • Normalizing what feels abnormal for clients in grief
Neuroscience of Traumatic Grief: Amygdala, Prefrontal Cortex, and Beyond
  • The role of the amygdala and the amygdala’s “core values” in the development and maintenance of traumatic grief
  • The C.A.S.E. for traumatic grief
    • A Holistic View: Cognitions, Autonomic Nervous System Response, Somatosensory Expressions, and Emotions
    • Grief compared to mourning: neurological underpinnings and external expressions
  • Neuroplasticity’s role in emotional healing
  • Neurochemical changes during grief: separation anxiety, memory and cognitive processes
Self-Havening: The Science of Mindful Touch and Emotional Relief
  • Touch as a tool for emotional regulation and resilience
  • Integrating self-havening into clinical practice
  • Limitations of the research, potential risks, and clinical considerations
  • Demonstration and guided practice: Simple Self-Havening techniques to use right away
Survivor’s Guilt: A Neuropsychological Perspective with Clinical Application
  • Understanding the complexities, context, and manifestation of survivor’s guilt in traumatic grief
  • Identifying and challenging irrational beliefs around guilt, shame, and regret
  • Clinical tools: CPR for the Amygdala: Empowering recovery from resentment and regret and compassion-focused therapy
Secondary Grief: Exploring the Ripple Effects on Loss
  • The compounded impact of secondary loss on individuals and systems
  • Wolfelt’s theory on the thirds of people around a grieving individual
  • How to identify secondary loss(es) with clients
  • Clinical tools: psychoeducation, role and identify shifts, building support systems, boundary setting, and more
Beyond Survival: Posttraumatic Growth, Resilience, and Recovery
  • Building the CASE for thriving
  • How neuroplasticity facilitates posttraumatic growth
  • Clinical tools: The rainbow of grief, narrative reconstruction, meaning-making, reflective storytelling, memory anchoring

Objectives

  1. Define the role of the amygdala in the development and maintenance of traumatic grief.
  2. Identify the key aspects of Wolfelt’s Rule of Thirds and how it impacts the experience of secondary grief.
  3. Utilize assessments to determine the appropriateness of integrating the Havening Touch into clinical treatment sessions.
  4. Use Self-Havening techniques for emotional regulation and resilience in response to grief and trauma.
  5. Determine the impact of trauma encodings on information processing.
  6. Appraise the risks and limitations of Havening research and applications.

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Psychologists
  • Therapist
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Physicians
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Other Mental Health Professionals

Copyright : 04/02/2024

Complicated Spiritual Grief: Assessment and Treatment

Faith, religion, and spirituality can be a supportive and comforting resource following the loss of anyone or anything that leaves a sense of deprivation and yearning. However, for some people their relationships to a higher power and/or spiritual community are painfully wounded, leading to the secondary loss of their spiritual resources, connections, and spiritual crisis. In this session, you’ll learn to recognize the impact of complicated spiritual grief on the bereaved’s grieving process and increase your skills in conducting a comprehensive clinical assessment and development of effective treatment plans.

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Analyze how complicated spiritual grief is experienced and expressed in clients.
  2. Utilize a bereavement-specific measure to assess clients for complicated spiritual grief following loss.
  3. Utilize clinical interventions that alleviate bereavement distress and support clients in making sense of losses during spiritual crises.

Outline

  • How to make the distinction between religion and spirituality
    • Clarifying how religion and spirituality differ
    • Learn how religion and spirituality relate to one’s self-concept and worldview
  • Exploring how grief is a spiritual crisis
    • Why bereavement can lead to questioning one’s faith or belief system
  • How can grief can be a catalyst for spiritual growth?
    • Loss leading a person into a search for meaning and purpose
  • Defining complicated spiritual grief
  • How complicated spiritual grief is experienced and expressed
    • How does complicated spiritual grief actually affect the griever?
    • The impact of complicated spiritual grief on one’s connection to a higher power or meaning
    • How one’s spiritual community may exacerbate complex spiritual grief
    • Complex spiritual grief and the impact on religious practices
  • How to help clients who are struggling with religious and spiritual crisis
    • Using the Inventory of Spiritual Grief 2.0
    • Clinical interventions
    • Research, risks and limitations

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Marriage & Family Therapists
  • Nurses
  • Nurse Practioners
  • Psychologists
  • Social Workers
  • Other Mental Health Professions

Copyright : 04/14/2023

Surviving Suicide Loss: Making Your Way Beyond the Ruins

Suicide and the stigma around it present painful challenges that can easily overwhelm the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of those left behind, leaving survivors feeling isolated and alone in its aftermath. This session will provide a roadmap to address specific strategies for soul care and post-traumatic growth (PTG) for suicide loss survivors and those who walk alongside them, helping them grope their way toward new sustainable frameworks of meaning. As a suicide loss survivor and therapist, the presenter brings a dual awareness that will help prepare clinicians in their work with suicidal clients and the survivors of suicide loss. You’ll discover:

  • Common emotional and spiritual issues that survivors of complex trauma face—such as stigma, complex grief, shame, existential shattering
  • Evidence-based strategies to help people rediscover personal strengths and the meaning necessary to move forward after this kind of traumatic loss
  • Specific strategies and interventions that foster adaptation and resiliency, including how to use somatic resourcing, art, writing, and mindfulness to cultivate personal and spiritual growth
  • How to interrogate the tacit assumptions about life, God and the world around them that were challenged by the trauma

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Evaluate the long- term impact of trauma on the brain.
  2. Catalogue key structures in the brain that are responsible for emotional regulation.
  3. Appraise the 3-factor model of suicide in order to mitigate survivors’ distress over the “Why” questions.
  4. Investigate common emotional and spiritual issues that survivors of complex trauma face.
  5. Demonstrate at least 6 evidence-based strategies for creating the meaning necessary to move forward after a traumatic loss.

Outline

  • Surviving suicide loss: making your way beyond the ruins
  • The crisis of belief & existential shattering
  • Making meaning and the importance of “why”
  • The neurobiology of the traumatized brain for clinicians
  • Assessment strategies for complex grief
  • Tools for managing guilt
  • Expressive and somatic interventions

Target Audience

  • Psychologists
  • Physicians
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Marriage & Family Therapists
  • Nurses
  • Other Behavioral Health Professionals

Copyright : 02/09/2022

Forever in My Heart: Expressions of Continuing Bonds in Childhood and Adolescent Grief

Death ends a physical relationship, but our emotional connections remain. Many grieving children and adolescents express this continued attachment by maintaining continuing bonds with the person who died. Continuing bonds are a normal part of the grief process, yet they often raise questions or concerns from those unfamiliar with the concept. In this workshop, you’ll gain insight into how children and adolescents maintain and express these bonds. Assessment and intervention strategies that promote adaptive bonds and healthy ongoing connections will also be explored.

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Identify common expressions of continuing bonds among grieving children and adolescents.
  2. Evaluate the factors that influence the type of continuing bonds children and adolescents maintain.
  3. Employ developmentally appropriate assessment and intervention strategies to promote the maintenance of adaptive bonds following a death.

Outline

  • Examine the construct of continuing bonds and its relevance to childhood and adolescent bereavement
  • Apply knowledge of attachment theory to assess continuing bonds in your clients
  • Explore how continuing bonds change over time
  • Identify commonly expressed continuing bonds and consider the factors that make those expressions unique
  • Consider how family differences in continuing bonds impact grieving children and adolescents
  • Explore assessment and intervention strategies that support the establishment of healthy continuing bonds

Target Audience

  • Counselors
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Social Workers
  • Physicians 
  • Psychologists
  • Addiction Counselors

Copyright : 07/31/2025