Grief is a universal human experience.
And yet it is one of the most challenging constellation of emotions to navigate, both for clients and therapists. Our grief-averse culture has impacted the education of therapists, providing them with limited training to respond to the diverse experiences of loss. Loss due to death…and due to severed relationships, health diagnosis, change in beliefs and identity, end of a dream, or an unfulfilled hope. Interwoven in our clients anxiety, depression, trauma and interpersonal conflict is grief. There is a need to empower therapists to develop skills to support those in the midst of profound human suffering.
My passion to empower therapists comes from own encounter with a traumatic loss. I discovered that my assumptions of grief were based on a medical model of loss that prescribes fixing the sorrow rather than providing compassionate tending. I also faced the difficult challenge of finding a therapist that could offer me guidance beyond the 5 stages of grief. Since then, I have dedicated the past 15 years to studying theories and practices that promote tending to loss with compassion. I am excited to offer The Embodiment of Grief training to enrich the work of therapists.
The Embodiment of Grief training is an opportunity for mental health clinicians to expand their knowledge of modern frameworks about grief and to explore their personal narrative of loss. The six week group will invite you to:
Understand current grief theories and treatments that go beyond the 5 Stages of Grief framework
Explore the grief experience due to death losses and ambiguous losses
Learn cultural influences, mourning rituals and identity formation
Present case consultations
Engage in the person of the therapist, through self-reflection and embodiment of grief practices to tend to therapists narrative of loss
My hope is that this training empowers therapists to provide compassionate and effective support to individuals and communities navigating the challenging terrain of grief. Together, we can foster healing, resilience, and growth in the face of loss.
Dates and times: TBA 2025
?’s email me at kellypowers.therapist@gmail.com