Memory boxes

In this module, learners will learn about the art therapy practice of creating memory boxes with bereaved patients.  As containers, boxes readily protect and hold memories, secrets, narratives, and emotions.  They provide a space for creating, storytelling, exploration and documentation.  Boxes come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and materials, and may be painted, decorated, […]

The Mandala as Soul Medicine: A Jungian Approach to Grief and Loss

When lives are shattered by grief and loss, an internal invitation often arises, guiding us to embrace the chaos, and to find a new ordering that challenges our assumptive world while undergoing a process of meaning reconstruction.  This module introduces learners to the mandala as spiritual medicine, for the act of creating into a circular […]

Internal Family Systems

This module will explore the integration of Art Therapy principles, Neimeyer’s Meaning Reconstruction approach to grief and Schwartz’s Internal Family System therapy model (IFS).  The goal of IFS is to build internal cooperation and increase “Self-Leadership” using the eight “C’s” of internal resources, such as curiosity, compassion, courage, and creativity.  An introductory video will illustrate […]

Grief through Creative Lens

Grief often calls for personal expression and often words are not enough.  Inviting clients to engage with color, shape, imagery and bits of paper sometimes meets with resistance since many people do not think of themselves as “creative.”  We all have imaginations and therefore the opportunity to view our grief experiences through a creative lens.  […]

Expressive Storytelling

Life-changing loss, especially in its tragic forms, can break life stories as well as hearts.  Expressive Storytelling supports a bereaved person’s adaptation to loss by gathering the shattered pieces, placing them on a chronological timeline, and retelling the crucial details through a therapeutic writing structure that encourages reconciliation and healing. After my father’s death, I […]

Drama Therapy Techniques

How can we as professionals work deeply with the grief of our clients when words are not enough?  This experiential module offers one novel answer in the form of drama therapy techniques adapted for individual and group bereavement interventions.  Dramatic actions in therapy help bring to life invisible dimensions of the experience that cannot be […]

Death of A Partner

Spousal / partner loss is often experienced as a profound loss resulting in significant disruptions in one’s daily life and major changes in the social world.  Whether the couple relationship used to be loving and intimate or ambivalent and conflictual, the surviving spouse / partners commonly need to review their sense of identity, life goals […]

Compassion-Based Therapy

Compassion-based approaches have been widely supported through recent research in the field with diverse populations. These approaches are of specific interest in bereavement due to their capacity-building effect for clinicians and clients alike. Training in compassion has demonstrated enhanced ability to tolerate distress, maintain focus, and discern clinical interventions that are appropriate for clients in […]

Collage: Reassembling Life

This training is intended for professionals who are seeking creative and imaginative skill development in their bereavement interventions with suicide loss survivors.  As no artistic talent is presumed on the part of the client or therapist, this course will be helpful for a broad range of mental health professionals, pastoral counselors and nurses, as well […]

Addressing the Trauma of Suicide & Overdose Loss: Meaning-Focused Assessment & Therapy

Viewed through the lens of the Tripartite Model of Meaning Reconstruction in Loss, the death of a significant person by suicide presents profound narrative challenges to integrating the event story of the loss, reconciling the back story of the relationship with the deceased, and revising the personal story of the life of the survivor. In […]