Full Course Description
Anxiety in the Wake of Loss: Strategies for Working with The Missing Stage of Grief
Losing someone we love thrusts us into a vulnerable place. It forces us to confront our mortality and life’s unpredictability, causing fear and anxiety to surface in profound and unexpected ways.
But while grief and anxiety are inexorably linked, this correlation is only just beginning to be recognized by the clinical community.
Join grief expert and acclaimed best-selling author Claire Bidwell-Smith and discover how you can help your clients manage their anxiety, process their grief on a deeper level, unpack their fears about mortality, and better bare vulnerability.
Plus, the best-selling author will join PESI’s own Zach Taylor, LPC, for an exclusive discussion and share expressive writing exercises to help your clients get their anxiety under control so they can come to terms with their losses!
Program Information
Objectives
- Analyze the clinical implications of anxiety symptoms contributing to the development of complicated grief.
- Assess the clinical importance of targeting death anxiety to improve treatment outcomes.
- Evaluate how the reduction of guilt related to the death is an important aspect of treating grief.
- Apply mindfulness as an effective strategy to help client manage their anxiety symptoms.
- Investigate how narrative approaches can be used with clients to help them cope with loss.
Outline
- The link between grief and anxiety
- Strategies to normalize anxiety after loss
- Mindfulness for reducing anxiety in grieving clients
- Making amends – guilt releasing exercises
- Resilient grieving
- Narrative approaches and writing exercises
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- School Counselors
- School Psychologists
- School Social Workers
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counselors
- Pastoral Counselors
- Chaplains/Clergy
- Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
- Mental Health Nurses
- Thanatologists
Copyright :
04/29/2021
Shattered Assumptions: Treat Grieving Clients Whose World Has Been Turned Upside Down
When our sense of normalcy is disrupted, and the assumptions that ground and stabilize us are turned upside down, we feel like we’ve been thrust into a new world where nothing makes sense.
During the pandemic we’ve all experienced multiple losses. Not just death, but the subsequent domino effect of losses and our collective loss of safety, security, identity, social connection, independence and all in our world we once considered normal.
But often these abstract and secondary losses fail to be recognized and properly mourned, complicating your clients’ grief and prolonging their suffering.
Dr. Joy Samuels has over 30 years of experience as a licensed counselor and has taught professionals across the country how they can improve their work with grieving clients.
Join her as she gives you the tools and strategies you need to help your clients acknowledge abstract and secondary losses and have them better equipped to face them so they can move forward when their expectations and assumptions about the world are shattered.
Program Information
Objectives
- Analyze the role that core belief disruptions play in the development of persistent complex bereavement.
- Investigate the impact of negative assumptive worldviews on outcomes of those with persistent complex bereavement.
- Investigate the clinical implications of meaning making as a mediating process in the relationship between risk factors for prolonged grief disorder (PGD) and subsequent emergence of PGD symptomatology.
Outline
- ‘Mind the gap’ - differences between expectations and experiences
- Exploring how expectations are created and maintained
- How to identify expectations and value language in clients
- Interventions to explore family of origin events
- Assessments to explore values and strengths
- Creating opportunities to discover new values
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counselors
- Nursing Home Administrators
- Pastoral Counselors
- Chaplains/Clergy
- Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
- Mental Health Nurses
- Thanatologists
Copyright :
04/29/2021
Anticipatory Grief: Help Clients Face Impending Loss and Uncertain Futures
When a loved one faces a terminal illness many start grieving before they pass.
This usually involves expecting death. Of knowing what’s coming. But since the pandemic began your clients are dealing with the unknown. They can’t predict who will contract COVID and what will happen if they do. And they’ve been unsure what will happen in many realms of their lives, leaving them feeling powerless to control what’s coming, but anticipating it with dread.
Now more than ever, we need to be prepared to work with anticipatory grief so we can help our clients process and cope even in the most trying times.
Join Dr. Erica Sirrine and get practical strategies for supporting clients and families facing illness or impending death of a loved one!
Program Information
Objectives
- Distinguish between anticipatory grief and conventional grief.
- Analyze core characteristics and challenges related to anticipatory grief.
- Investigate common anticipatory grief reactions.
- Apply interventions to help clients cope when anticipating the loss of a terminally ill loved one.
Outline
- The construct of anticipatory grief
- Common anticipatory grief reactions
- Facilitate conversations about illness, death, and loss to promote healthy coping
- Interventions for children, adolescents, adults, and families facing terminal illness
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counselors
- Nursing Home Administrators
- Pastoral Counselors
- Chaplains/Clergy
- Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
- Mental Health Nurses
- Thanatologists
Copyright :
04/29/2021
Kids and Loss: How to Work with the Uniqueness of a Child’s Grief
In the past year families have been confronted with death on a scale not witnessed in generations.
And children are often impacted most intensely following the loss of an immediate or extended family member. Trauma, pain and confusion replacing safety and security.
But their understanding of death, and responses to the grief that follows, are largely influenced by their developmental level, making their treatment much different from that of an adult.
Join Dr. Erica Sirrine for this powerful session so you can better understand the unique nature of grief in children and adolescents and get developmentally appropriate treatment strategies to help these vulnerable clients find hope and healing!
Program Information
Objectives
- Analyze the behavioral manifestations of grief in children.
- Evaluate the implications of a bereaved child or adolescent’s developmental stage on grief counseling and treatment.
- Apply appropriate interventions for bereaved children and adolescents to mitigate potential disruption of healthy developmental trajectories.
- Assess the diverse needs of bereaved children and families to prevent complications of grief and promote healthy adaptation following loss.
Outline
- Cognitive components of understanding grief in childhood
- Common grief reactions and coping mechanisms in grieving children and adolescents
- Creative intervention strategies
- Grief support groups for children and adolescents
- Ethical and practical implications for counseling children at schools
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- School Counselors
- School Psychologists
- School Social Workers
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counselors
- Pastoral Counselors
- Chaplains/Clergy
- Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
- Mental Health Nurses
- Thanatologists
Copyright :
04/29/2021
Grief Work in Virtual Settings: New Tools to Create Support and Connection
We’ve all changed the way we work in the last year. And while we’ve become familiar with the technology and rules surrounding telehealth we still want to do better for our clients.
This recording will help you to up your game when working remotely with grieving clients!
Join grief expert and Fellow in Thanatology Alissa Drescher as provides you with the creative tools and effective online resources you need to master grief work via video conferencing, build your “webside” manner and make your treatment as impactful as possible when working virtually!
Program Information
Objectives
- Analyze current research supporting the use of videoconferencing for behavioral interventions across many patient populations and clinical settings.
- Investigate how online grief support networks can be used to reduce psychological distress and increase psychosocial benefits for clients.
- Evaluate resources that can be used to facilitate the tasks of mourning when working remotely with clients.
- Evaluate how distance-technology grief supports can be delivered to support clients with complicated grief.
Outline
The unique challenges of suicide survivors
- A strengths-based approach to build resiliency and plant the seeds of possibility
- Techniques to transform the survivor’s relationship with the deceased
- Narratives to reframe the meaning attached to the suicide
- Strategies to help clients access and reclaim compassion
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counselors
- Nursing Home Administrators
- Pastoral Counselors
- Chaplains/Clergy
- Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
- Mental Health Nurses
- Thanatologists
Copyright :
04/29/2021
Unattended Grief: Interventions to Facilitate Healthy Grieving
Our social connections, routine and sense of security have all been disrupted by the pandemic making it difficult to fully acknowledge the losses in our lives amongst the chaos.
But left unattended grief can negatively impact every aspect of our being — altering our physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual health.
Join David Kessler, one of the world’s foremost experts on healing and loss, as he shares the tips and interventions he’s found most helpful in facilitating healthy grieving, even in unprecedented times.
Plus, you’ll end this segment with an exclusive discussion between David and PESI’s own Zach Taylor, LPC that will leave you feeling connected, energized and more ready than ever to help the grieving.
Program Information
Objectives
- Investigate techniques that can be used to help those dealing with loss in their lives during the pandemic.
- Utilize tools for helping clients address trauma, grief and the traumatic moment.
- Assess how all losses, including death, divorce, job loss and more can impact clients.
Outline
What unattended grief looks like
- When we’re not attending and when others aren’t attending
- Grief, trauma and post-traumatic growth
- 6 keys to helping clients attend to their grief
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counselors
- Nursing Home Administrators
- Pastoral Counselors
- Chaplains/Clergy
- Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
- Mental Health Nurses
- Thanatologists
Copyright :
04/30/2021
Compassion Fatigue: Prevention for Professionals Who Work with Grief and Trauma
Working with clients who are traumatized and/or grieving is challenging. It requires that we remain connected and engaged as we hear stories of loss and pain and horror. We witness our clients in states of abject fear, red-hot anger and soul-crushing grief. Most times we are trapped in our office chairs and are compelled to witness and absorb this pain being experienced right in front of us. That obviously is going to cause problems for us clinicians, right? You cannot listen to and absorb trauma throughout your career without getting sick from it, right? Not necessarily. Join Dr. Gentry—an international expert on the treatment and prevention of compassion fatigue—in a hope-filled look at Forward-Facing® Professional Resilience. Born from over 20 years of research and development, FFPR provides a pathway for professional maturation that both resolves and prevents the deleterious effects of work-related stress including secondary traumatic stress and burnout. The five simple resilience skills of FFPR have demonstrated effectiveness in significantly lessening compassion fatigue symptoms while enhancing resilience and professional quality of life. These results have been published in 12 peer-reviewed articles with multiple populations of professional and volunteer care providers.
Program Information
Outline
Your Job is NOT Stressful! From external to internal locus of control
- Most people believe their environments cause their stress. This is a formula for hopelessness and demoralization.
- Discover the single true cause of work-related stress.
Forward-Facing® Professional Resilience – The Five Skills
- Self-Regulation
- Intentionality
- Perceptual Maturation
- Connection & Support
- Self-Care & Revitalization
Objectives
- Identify how secondary traumatic stress and burnout synergize to produce the symptoms of compassion fatigue.
- Identify signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue.
- Restructure perception to discover that work and workplaces are not stressful—and identify the true cause of work-related stress.
- Conceptualize and begin practicing professional maturation through personal utilization of the five Forward-Facing® Professional Resilience skills.
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- School Counselors
- School Psychologists
- School Social Workers
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counselors
- Pastoral Counselors
- Chaplains/Clergy
- Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
- Mental Health Nurses
- Thanatologists
Copyright :
04/30/2021
Traumatic Grief: Cognitive, Behavioral and Somatic Approaches
Loss is hard. Grief is hard. The challenge of accommodating loss and mitigating the strong feelings of grief is difficult with any loss in our lives. However, it can be significantly compounded when the loss is traumatic and unexpected. Loss of a loved one to a traumatic experience such as an acute illness (e.g., COVID; heart attack; sepsis), an accident, a natural disaster, or human-caused circumstances can produce an outcome of “traumatic grief”. People who experience traumatic grief can rapidly cycle between experiences of acute and overwhelming grief to serious posttraumatic stress symptoms of intrusion, avoidance, distorted perception and heightened arousal. Without intentional treatment designed to address both the grief and trauma simultaneously—just like we have learned is necessary with a co-occurring substance use disorder and traumatic stress—there is the possibility of the loss metastasizing into hard-to-heal complicated bereavement and PTSD. This short program provides early intervention skills for clinicians to help their clients effectively address loss/grief simultaneously with posttraumatic stress symptoms in a simple, relationally driven, cognitive-behavioral-somatic process that catalyzes safe expression and externalization of grief while lessening posttraumatic stress symptoms. All these skills are easily adapted into a telehealth delivery. This is an excellent course for those clinicians working with survivors who have lost a loved one to COVID-19.
Program Information
Outline
How does grief become “traumatic grief”? What are the signs and symptoms?
- Perceived threat and the autonomic nervous system.
- Tasks of Mourning (Worden, 2015)
How to use CBS (Cognitive-Behavioral-Somatic) treatment to lessen symptoms and enhance functioning
- In vivo exposure to lessen threat response and ameliorate traumatic stress symptoms
- Narrative + Relaxation to complete “Tasks of Mourning”
Objectives
- Articulate the etiological factors for Traumatic Grief.
- Identify signs and symptoms of Traumatic Grief.
- Utilize Worden’s “Tasks of Mourning” to conceptualize the navigation of treatment for all forms of bereavement: simple, complicated and traumatic.
- Utilize cognitive, behavioral and somatic techniques to lessen symptoms and enhance functioning for those suffering with Traumatic Grief.
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- School Counselors
- School Psychologists
- School Social Workers
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counselors
- Pastoral Counselors
- Chaplains/Clergy
- Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
- Mental Health Nurses
- Thanatologists
Copyright :
04/30/2021
Reach Across Divides: Cultural & Difference Focused Practices in Grief Work
The grief journey of our clients is impacted by race, culture, gender, sexual orientation, age, economics, inequalities and power differentials.
But without understanding the dynamics of our clients experiences we can find ourselves unprepared to work with diverse clients and fail to offer support that is ethical, relevant, and culturally sensitive to their needs.
This thought provoking and honest presentation will offer a new lens through which to view your grief work with diverse and underserved populations and give you a socially just framework you can use to reach across divides and make healing connections with clients of all backgrounds!
Program Information
Outline
How inequalities in race, gender, sexual orientation and age impact support of grief and loss
- Diversity vs. inclusion
- Barriers to inclusive practice in communities of difference
- Personal assessment activity
- Cultural competence vs. culturally and difference intentioned/aware practice
- Cultural & difference-focused engagement ideas and strategies
- Best practices in difference/intersectionality
Objectives
- Evaluate the impacts of inequalities in race, gender, sexual orientation, and age on counseling, treatment and support practices for grief and loss.
- Determine how an understanding of diversity and inclusion can benefit clinicians working with grieving clients.
- Investigate barriers to clinicians maintaining inclusive practices in communities of difference.
- Apply best practices to create a culturally and difference informed practice.
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- School Counselors
- School Psychologists
- School Social Workers
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counselors
- Pastoral Counselors
- Chaplains/Clergy
- Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
- Mental Health Nurses
- Thanatologists
Copyright :
04/30/2021
Grief After Suicide: Transition Survivors from “Why?” to “What’s Next?”
Suicide survivors don’t come to you because they’re interested in growth. They don’t want to explore new possibilities. They just want to relieve the pain, ease the misery, and make sense of the death. But there’s no life in only asking why. On many levels, there will be no closure.
As clinicians, we can’t help survivors change unless we challenge them to step out and take risks. It’s critical to tap into the client’s potential for resiliency, open them to new possibilities, and walk with them along the path to post-traumatic growth.
Join Rita Schulte, licensed professional counselor, radio host, author, and suicide survivor to get the skills and strategies you need to transition grieving clients who’ve lost loved ones to suicide from “why?” to “what’s next?”
Program Information
Objectives
- Analyze the treatment implications of the unique challenges faced by grieving suicide survivors.
- Determine how the meaning clients attach to suicide can impede recovery.
- Apply a strengths-based approach to tap into suicide survivors’ potential for resiliency.
- Utilize narrative techniques to help suicide survivors make meaning following suicide loss.
Outline
The unique challenges of suicide survivors
- A strengths-based approach to build resiliency and plant the seeds of possibility
- Techniques to transform the survivor’s relationship with the deceased
- Narratives to reframe the meaning attached to the suicide
- Strategies to help clients access and reclaim compassion
Target Audience
- Counselors
- Social Workers
- Marriage and Family Therapists
- Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- School Counselors
- School Psychologists
- School Social Workers
- Case Managers
- Addiction Counselors
- Pastoral Counselors
- Chaplains/Clergy
- Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners
- Mental Health Nurses
- Thanatologists
Copyright :
04/30/2021