HV26-09 - Opleiding - R. Neimeyer (USA) Seeking Meaning in Loss: 2-Day Workshop in Meaning-Focused Grief Therapy

Een unieke kans!! 

We nodigden Bob Neimeyer nog eens uit naar België voor een exclusieve 2daagse.
Opnieuw zal hij ons meenemen in de meest recente kennis en kunde, als houvast voor in ieders rouwtherapeutisch werk.

An exclusive 2-day workshop
with Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD,
featuring contributions from Carolyn Ng, PsyD

Date: 

Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th of November 2026.

Time:

9.30h - 16.30h

Location: 

Verbinding in Verlies, Leuvenselaan 24, 3300 Tienen (nearby the station)

Instructors: 

Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, maintains an active consulting practice, and directs the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition, which provides global online training in grief therapy.  Neimeyer has published 37 books, including Living Beyond Loss: Questions and Answers about Grief and Bereavement, New Techniques of Grief Therapy, Working with Continuing Bonds in Grief Therapy, and serves as Editor of Death Studies.  The author of over 600 articles and book chapters, he has been recognized in the Stanford University / Elsevier list of Top 2% Scientists in the world, with 57,968 citations to his work according to Google Scholar.  Neimeyer is currently working to advance a more adequate theory of grieving as a meaning-making process.  In recognition of his contributions, he has been made a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and given Lifetime Achievement Awards by both the Association for Death Education and Counseling and the International Network on Personal Meaning.

With contributions from Carolyn Ng, PsyD, Associate Director, Portland Institute for Loss and Transition.
Carolyn Ng, PsyD, MMSAC, RegCLR maintains a private practice, Anchorage for Loss and Transition, for training, supervision and therapy in Singapore, while also serving as Associate Director of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition.  Previously she was a Principal Counsellor with the Children’s Cancer Foundation in Singapore, specialising in cancer-related palliative care and bereavement counselling.  She is a registered counsellor, master clinical member and approved supervisor with the Singapore Association for Counselling (SAC) and a consultant to a cancer support and bereavement ministry in Sydney, Australia.  She is trained in the Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) by the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, USA, community crisis response by the National Organisation for Victim Assistance (NOVA), USA, and Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) by LivingWorks, Canada.  She is also a trained end-of-life doula and advanced care planning facilitator.  Her recent writing concerns meaning-oriented narrative approach with individuals, couples and families in both pre- and post-loss contexts, with an emphasis on conversational and art-assisted approaches for fostering new meaning and action.

Content and schedule:

Day 1: 9am-12:15pm 
Meaning-Focused Grief Therapy: Principles and Practices 

How can we support bereaved people who struggle with a tragic loss, the sudden or violent death of a loved one, or with guilt, regret, anger or other unresolved relational issues with the deceased? This 3-hour module provides clear guidelines for grief counseling and therapy for just such complications, using frequent clinical videos and opportunities for small group discussion to introduce participants to essential practices for helping clients find more meaning in the loss and in their lives in its aftermath.

How we grieve is shaped by who we are, who we lose, and how we lose them.  Viewed through the lens of a meaning-focused grief therapy, we will briefly consider the role of trauma-informed work to promote integration of the story of the loss and its implications for our worldview, attachment-informed interventions to reconstruct the continuing bond with the deceased, and a resilience-informed approach to revising our sense of identity as we move forward in life.  We will briefly summarize research that highlights key challenges in each domain, as we then consider the process markers that call for particular therapeutic approaches, illustrating these with actual recorded therapy with bereaved parents, partners and adult children to identify the fundamental features of the therapy relationship and key interventions that make change possible.

Learning Objectives

• Outline the essential domains of a Tripartite Model of Meaning Reconstruction for grief therapy and how it can serve as an overarching frame for assessment and intervention
• Summarize research on the role of meaning making in mediating the impact of evidence-based risk factors on bereavement outcome.
• Practice a creative technique for helping clients recruit sources of safety and support in times of troubling transition

Schedule

• Framing the Work:  A Tripartite Model of Meaning Reconstruction (60 mins.)
• The Power of Presence:  Grounding Practices for Grief Therapy (60 mins.)
• Building My Safe House:  Seeking Shelter in Times of Stress (60 mins.)

Day 1: 1:15-4:30pm 
Trauma-Informed Grief Therapy:  Restorative Retelling of a Tragic Loss 

Particularly when a death is tragic and untimely, as when a significant person dies by suicide, homicide, overdose, or fatal accident, grief can be complicated by a gamut of challenging emotions, ranging from horror and helplessness to anger and incomprehension.  In such cases, grief therapy needs to adopt a carefully tailored approach that recognizes the role of trauma in impeding the mourner’s integration of the loss.  

We will begin by considering research that documents how tragic bereavement can precipitate a crisis of meaning, contributing to prolonged, anguishing and functionally impairing forms of grief.  Drawing on clinical videos of clients contending with losses through both sudden natural death and suicide, we will learn to listen between the lines of the stories clients tell themselves and others about the death and how we can facilitate a healing narration of the loss experience under conditions of emotional regulation, deliberation and sense-making regarding the dying narrative. 

Learning Objectives

• Identify markers for the use of narrative retelling of an event story of loss, and guidelines for avoiding re-traumatization;
• Discuss the concept of narrative braiding and the three strands of the client’s story that this involves; and
• Implement Restorative Retelling procedures for mastering the event story of the loss.

Schedule

• Restorative Retelling:  Bracing, Pacing and Facing (60 mins.)
• Trauma to Transformation:  Clinical Illustrations (45 mins.)
• From Principles to Practice:  An Experiential Exercise (75 mins.)

Day 2: 9am-12:15pm 
Attachment-Informed Grief Therapy:  Addressing Relational Complications

A primary goal of grieving for most mourners is to realign, rather than relinquish, their continuing attachment to the person that they have loved and lost.  But both the circumstances of the death and the nature of the relationship can pose profound challenges for survivors in establishing a sustainable bond to the deceased, creating impasses that can become the focus of grief therapy.  To redress these relational complications, we will explore facilitating symbolic conversations with the dead using imaginal dialogue and chair work with grieving clients can promote both of these aims. 

We will begin by clarifying the architecture of such interventions, as well as the conditions necessary for clients to deepen into the subjective reality of this work.  We then formulate advanced guidelines for the choreography of the session, focusing on visual and vocal cues for directing the client’s performance of relevant roles, ventriloquism of the voices of both client and deceased, and the use of props to enhance clients’ attention.  Finally, these principles are demonstrated in a case study featuring a session of imaginal dialogue with a bereaved son, which will be thoroughly processed with workshop participants to reveal markers of readiness for imaginal work, and how such deep experiential methods can be used safely in online sessions. We will then conclude with an opportunity to practice these skills with the support of faculty in a small group exercise.

Learning Objectives

• Describe the structural phases of imaginal dialogues and the circumstances under which they can be effectively utilized as a powerful experiential intervention in grief therapy;
• Discuss the essential process-oriented skills required by the therapist to deepen the client into such work, foster realignment of the relationship with the deceased and ensure safety in entry into and exit from the encounter
• Describe procedures for prompting client “witnessing” of the interaction and tailoring it to use safely in cases when the deceased has profoundly abused, neglected or abandoned the client.

Schedule

• Bonding vs. Bondage: Complications in the Continuing Bond (45 mins.)
• The Choreography of Imaginal Dialogues:  Structure & Process (60 mins.)
• From Viewing to Doing:  Putting Principles into Practice (75 mins.)

Day 2: 1:15-4:30pm 
Resilience-Informed Grief Therapy:  Exploring the Grieving Self

As Thomas Attig might phrase it, grieving entails relearning the self and relearning the world, because both are challenged and changed by the sudden and frequently tragic death of an intimate other.  In such cases, we may be deprived of crucial relationships that anchor our sense of who we are, lose parts of ourselves sustained by the deceased, suffer deactivation of life-defining roles or positions, or when the loss is stigmatizing, as through the suicide or drug overdose of a loved one, struggle with social avoidance, shame or ostracism. In all these ways radical changes arising in bereavement commonly require us to revisit and revise core aspects of our identity and construct a new self in their wake, potentially opening pathways to profound personal growth through grief.

In this module, we begin by providing a schematic model of the impact of bereavement on survivors’ sense of self, which ushers in a need to reauthor their self-narrative.  We then consider Embodied Dialogue, a technique for helping mourners discern the deeper significance of their experience rooted in their somatic experience, and in doing so identify the important needs and life lessons implicit in them. Drawing on clinical videos demonstrating the method, we will explore the role of metaphor in helping clients reach beyond literal language to explore subtle but substantial alterations in identity arising from unwelcome transition, ultimately freeing them to rebuild a sense of self in a changed world.

Learning Objectives

• Summarize the four key steps in Embodied Dialogue as a procedure to help clients make greater sense of their emotions and themselves;
• Describe how a figurative form of somatic inquiry into the felt sense of loss can help clients symbolize their implicit embodied meanings;
• Discuss the use of Conversing with the Canvas as an optional extension of the method and its advantages in individual and group applications.

Schedule

• Who Am I Now?  Identity Change in Bereavement (45 mins.)
• Embodied Dialogue:  Analogical Listening to the Heart of Grief (60 mins.)
• On Metaphors and Meanings:  An Experiential Practice (75 mins.)

Cost: 

Early bird: 450 euros (untill 30th of June, use the code: HV26-09)
Regular: 550 euros 

This includes drinks, fruit, yoghurt and cookies. 

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Note: Photos taken during the training are used solely as images for the Verbinding in Verlies website and social media channels. If you prefer not to appear in any photos, please let us know upon arrival!

In case of cancellation, the following conditions apply:

• Cancellations must always be made in writing via email.
• In case of cancellation up to one month before the training day, 50% of the registration fee will be refunded.
• In case of cancellation within one month of the training day, the registration fee will no longer be refunded.
• For 1- or 2-day trainings, you may always send a colleague as a replacement free of charge.