“Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I do something?” “My guilt is worse than my grief.”
“I feel like nothing has changed since he died—like I’m frozen in time.”

These are not simply grief reactions—they are anguished markers of disrupted attachment. For many clients, grief is not a linear process of letting go, but a prolonged state of dysregulation: guilt-ridden, emotionally constricted, and often impervious to well-meaning therapeutic attempts.

While the universality of loss is widely acknowledged, far less attention has been paid to the complexity of grief expression, especially when shaped by the client’s attachment history and deficits in emotion regulation. Evidence-based neuroscientific research now helps us understand how these childhood attachment patterns show up in complex grief: beginning with an understanding of how the loss of a significant person in adulthood will evoke many of the same feelings, reactions, and even behaviours that accompanied separation from a security-enhancing attachment figure in childhood.

As clinicians, we are frequently confronted with the quiet despair of clients for whom grief is not healing, but paralysing. And when that grief resists narrative, bypasses expression, or emerges as affective flooding, we can feel stuck—witnessing pain without knowing how to reach it.

At this cutting-edge workshop, internationally recognised grief expert Dr Kosminsky brings decades of clinical experience to deepen our understanding of the layered connection between complex grief and adult attachment behaviour and, more crucially, how it is influenced by the internal narrative of the client. Rather than focusing only on what attachment history the grieving client has experienced, we also assess the meaning they’ve made of those experiences, and their resulting state of mind with regard to attachment.

This one-day workshop offers a rare opportunity to go beyond generic models and deepen your therapeutic capacity in the presence of complex bereavement. Drawing on her influential work with Dr John Jordan (Attachment-Informed Grief Therapy), as well as over thirty years of clinical practice, Dr Kosminsky invites us to understand grief as an inherently relational wound – one that requires a relational response.

The Correlation between attachment and adaptation to loss

Contemporary research reveals that the nature of early attachment relationships strongly predicts one’s ability to regulate emotion in the face of loss. Early attachment patterns  show a strong correlation to the differences in flexibility and adaptation of how people react to loss. Over a decade of findings underscore the role of attachment security in the development of adaptive, cognitive and affect-related capacities that are particularly needed in times of stress, bereavement being a prime example.

Those with insecure or disorganised attachment histories may experience bereavement not as a rupture but as a reactivation of developmental trauma, marked by physiological dysregulation, numbing, or guilt-driven preoccupations.

The Therapist as Transitional Attachment Figure

In attachment-informed grief therapy, the therapeutic relationship itself becomes a corrective emotional experience—with the therapist functioning as a transitional attachment figure providing co-regulation, containment, and the necessary conditions for emotional processing. Rather than imposing structure onto grief, we respond to it as a relational system that seeks—above all else—safety and understanding.

Dr. Kosminsky emphasises attunement over technique in this approach. Through clinical examples, experiential exercises, and directed writing, participants will discover how effective grief therapy emerges not from interventions alone, but through the client’s felt experience of being deeply understood. This workshop will help you develop the relational presence that allows bereaved clients to safely enter and process their grief.

Moving Beyond Technique: What This Workshop Offers

This is not a formulaic model. Instead, it is an invitation to develop your own therapeutic presence in response to the unique grief stories your clients bring.

Participants will learn how to:

• Apply structured assessment tools to identify clients’ attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant, disorganised) and customise therapeutic approaches accordingly.
• Recognise specific emotion regulation deficits in bereaved clients using observational and interview techniques, and implement targeted verbal and somatic interventions for affect modulation.
• Implement the Two-Track Model of Bereavement (Rubin, 1999) to create comprehensive treatment plans addressing both relationship to the deceased (Track I) and biopsychosocial functioning (Track II).
• Utilise specific narrative, sensory, and embodied techniques for clients trapped in guilt, idealisation, or avoidance patterns, with practical strategies for each presentation.
• Guide clients in developing the capacity to oscillate between loss-oriented and restoration-oriented coping (Stroebe & Schut’s Dual Process Model), with concrete methods for facilitating this movement.
• Demonstrate and practice at least five evidence-based mind-body regulation strategies including guided somatic awareness, breath work, and grounding techniques appropriate for various grief presentations.

Every element of the day is grounded in both empirical evidence and decades of applied clinical wisdom. Whether your clients are grieving the death of a parent, partner, child, or navigating less socially recognised or ambiguous losses, the methods you learn will help you accompany them with greater clarity, confidence, and compassion.

Don’t Miss This Rare Opportunity 

Join Dr. Phyllis Kosminsky for this transformative one-day workshop and gain invaluable skills that will fundamentally change how you work with grieving clients. Beyond theories and techniques, you’ll experience a profound shift in how you understand and respond to the complex terrain of loss. Your bereaved clients are waiting for the depth of understanding and skilful attunement that only attachment-informed grief therapy can provide. When words fail and standard approaches fall short, the skills you’ll develop in this workshop will make the difference between therapeutic stagnation and genuine healing. Spaces are limited to ensure an intimate, clinically rich learning environment. Register today to secure your place in this career-defining professional development opportunity.

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