As contemporary models of bereavement have become more nuanced and empirically informed, so too have the practices available to counselors and therapists who work with complicated, prolonged and debilitating forms of grief. This module offers in-depth training in several of these techniques, nesting them both within the therapy relationship and in the context of current theories and research that provide flexible, trauma-informed frameworks for intervention.
Beginning with a discussion of the power of presence as a fundamental dimension of the therapeutic “holding environment,” we will consider how we can quickly assess our clients’ needs and readiness for change. We will then discuss how to create a safe relational container for a healing “re-telling” of the loss experience, anchoring such work in both contemporary Meaning Reconstruction and Dual Process models and related research. Drawing on clinical videos of clients contending with losses through sudden natural death, accident and suicide, we will learn to listen between the lines of the stories clients tell themselves and others about the death to grasp more fully the unvoiced meaning of their grief, and how we can help them integrate the event story of the death into lives with less reactivity, and find a compassionate audience for its telling.
