Strategies of Grief Therapy: A Meaning Reconstruction Approach

As grief theory and research have grown to include emotion-focused, attachment and meaning-oriented approaches, so too has the range of methods available to grief therapists.  This workshop explores principles and practices deriving from these perspectives, with a focus on four types of processes, including:  (1) grief work, (2) narrative work, (3) continuing bonds work,  and (4) imagery work.  Each type of therapeutic strategy suggests the relevance of various clinical procedures for engaging a client’s words and images to reconstruct their relationship to the deceased, and to reveal obstacles to such reconstruction.  

This workshop draws on cutting edge theory and research to reinforce the relevance of these four core intervention strategies, and will make use of therapeutic videos, demonstrations and exercises to convey how these methods work and feel in the context of practice.  As a result, participants will leave with a clearer conceptualization of processes that foster constructive meaning-making in bereavement.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify the defining characteristics of successful and complicated accommodation of loss
2. Distinguish between two major forms of narrative work and identify strategies for working with each
3. Describe two methods for working with the continuing bond to promote bereavement adaptation
4. Practice two uses of imagery and metaphor to foster the articulation and reconstruction of loss experiences

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Instructor:	Robert A. Neimeyer, Ph.D. Robert Neimeyer, Professor, Psychotherapy Research Area, Department of Psychology, University Memphis and internationally known researcher, author and speaker in the field of death, grief and loss. http://web.mac.com/neimeyer/iWeb/Home/About%20Me.html
Date:	Friday, December 04, 2009
Time:	9:00am - 4:30pm, Registration 8:30am - 9:00am
Location:	UW-Green Bay, University Union
CEUs/CEHs:	7CEHs/0.6CEUs applied for
Fee:	$109
	Includes course materials, CEU certificate, a mid-morning and mid-afternoon 15-minute break and a one hour lunch. The UW-Green Bay Institute on Dying, Death and Bereavement gratefully acknowledges the support of this program sponsor whose contribution partially underwrites workshop costs: Heartland Home Health and Hospice

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