Therapy Session Masterclass (TSM) Series: Working with the Pain of Loss: Video Course

At this seminar, Dr Kosminsky, acclaimed author of Attachment informed grief therapy: The clinician’s guide to foundations and applications, uses video client vignettes to address the following questions:

• How do we normalize grief while duly acknowledging the pain of the bereaved individual?
• Grief is painful, but it is not an illness. How do we differentiate normal grief from what is considered complicated or prolonged grief disorder?
• A grieving client often struggles with two stressors: loss orientated, and restoration orientated. Why is this dual processing of grief difficult for some people and how can we help them?

Course objectives:

• Describe recent developments in bereavement research, in neuroscience and in attachment theory that bear on our understanding of how people adapt to loss
• Discuss the practical application of Attachment Theory in providing bereavement support to individuals with attachment related grief complications
• Discuss specific techniques for helping bereaved clients manage emotion, modify cognitions that impede healing, and adapt to changes brought about by significant loss

The seminar is part of our newly launched Therapy Session Masterclass (TSM) Series and follows the format described below.

Therapy Session Masterclass (TSM) Series

“What would you have said to the client in this situation?” is a question that delegates often ask the speaker when attending training sessions hosted at nscience. While, as therapists, we can learn a lot from exposition and case illustrations, our learning can be significantly enhanced if we were to have the opportunity to watch senior clinicians and experts in their therapy sessions with clients – we can observe how they manage the narrative, how they respond to complex situations, what overall approach they follow and their individual format for therapeutic interactions.

With this approach in mind, we’ve launched the Therapy Session Masterclass (TSM) Series – a regular programme of evening sessions (each of which can be individually attended as a stand-alone event), moderated and led by Dr Jan McGregor Hepburn, where we will be inviting leading experts in Psychotherapy & Counselling – to let us observe them in clinical settings. Each of the sessions will have dedicated time for a demo therapy session (either video recorded or a live role-play), which will be followed by moderated interactions with delegates. Not only will delegates have the opportunity to see the invited experts in clinical settings but will also have a chance to quiz the expert on their choice of therapy methods.

As participants, we can also bring our own brief case vignettes that may be related to the topic at hand. A selection of these will be discussed by the invited expert.

About the speakers

Phyllis Kosminsky, PhD, LCSW, is a clinical social worker in private practice in New York and at the Center for Hope in Darien, Connecticut. She has provided individual counselling to hundreds of bereaved individuals and has helped many more in bereavement support groups and in the aftermath of traumatic events. She has conducted trainings for mental health professionals nationally and internationally in the treatment of normal and problematic grief. Her publications include journal articles, book chapters, and the book Getting Back to Life When Grief Won’t Heal (McGraw Hill, 2007). Her book with John R. Jordan, Attachment informed grief therapy: The clinician’s guide to foundations and applications. New York, NY: Routledge was published in 2016.

Dr Jan McGregor Hepburn has a background in Social Work Management and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and is a trainer for the North of England Association for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She held the position of Registrar of the British Psychoanalytic Council from 2005 to 2020 and chairs the Professional Standards Committee. She is the author of several papers, most notably those published in the British Journal of Psychotherapy and European Psychotherapy Journal. She has presented papers at conferences and devised and facilitated both seminars and workshops on a variety of subjects to both management dynamics and clinical topics.

She is part of the ScopEd project which is the collaboration between BACP, UKCP and BPC to map the core competencies for clinical work. She is on the Reading Panel of the British Journal of Psychotherapy and has a doctorate from the University of Northumbria. Her latest book: Guilt and Shame, A Clinician’s Guide is out now with nscience publishing house.

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