Languages of loss - finding ways to express grief

Grief is universal and unavoidable, yet we live as though it won’t happen to us and we avoid talking about it. Losing a loved one may be your client’s biggest fear, or they may be engulfed and silenced by the pain of it having already happened. Or, this may be your own experience.

If, as therapists, we ourselves find grief hard to talk about, how can we help our clients open up about one of the most tumultuous and life-changing events they may ever experience? This experiential workshop will ask you to confront your own losses - those that have happened, and those that you might like to deny will ever happen.

We will explore how grief - our own and that of our clients - can be borne, both within and without the therapy room and discuss resourcing, in the widest possible sense. We will ground our own experience within the context of the various grief theories: Kubler-Ross’s five stages, Worden’s four tasks, and the more recent Dual Process and Continuing Bonds theories, examining their usefulness, or otherwise. Can theory really help navigate all the ways we attempt to bear the unbearable, express the inexpressible and give voice to the un-verbalisable?

Sasha Bates, MA

I am an integrative psychotherapist, trained at The Minster Centre. I was working in private practice and teaching CPD workshops on various subjects to do with yoga, trauma, and self-care until the day when my husband dropped dead suddenly and with no warning. Overwhelmed by my own grief, I turned to journaling as an outlet for the unbearable feelings, and to help me make sense of emotions I couldn’t cope with. I also turned to therapeutic theory to help me cognitively understand what I was going through. This dual approach eventually led to a book - languages of loss - a conversation between my grieving self and my therapist self.

CPD certificates will be provided

Visit our website to book your place: www.minstercentre.ac.uk.