About this course

Learning Objectives

• Define the types of ambiguous loss and assess them impact of ambiguous loss stressors on individuals and family systems.
• Differentiate other non-death losses, including non-finite loss and chronic sorrow, defining overlapping and distinguishing features.
• Identify therapeutic and psychoeducational interventions to ease the stress of ambiguous loss and provide individual, family, and community support for other non-death losses.
• Discuss the role and limitations of resilience in ambiguous loss and apply evidence-informed techniques for promoting resilience in circumstances of ambiguous and non-death loss.

Learning Levels

• Intermediate

Course Instructor(s)

• 

  Eleanor Haley, MS

  Eleanor Haley, MS is co-founder of What’s Your Grief, one of the country’s largest online grief and bereavement support communities which is accessed by over 3 million grievers every year. With a background in counseling psychology, Eleanor has over 15 years of expertise in grief, with expertise in working with families who have experienced traumatic and unexpected losses. She is co-author of the book What's Your Grief: Lists to Help You Through Any Loss and has co-authored 15 grief publications used in hospitals, hospices, funeral homes, and OPOs across the US and Canada. She has experience teaching psychology courses at the college level and is passionate about innovative teaching methods, technologies, and pedagogical approaches to enhance grief education and support. She has been interviewed as a grief expert for media outlets including NPR, Washington Post, The New York Times, USNews, and Huffington Post.

• 

  Litsa Williams MA, LCSW-C

  Litsa Williams, MA, LCSW-C is the co-founder of the online grief organization What’s Your Grief. She’s a grief therapist with 15 years of experience, with expertise in sudden and traumatic loss as well as ambiguous grief. Drawing on personal and professional experience with grief, WYG was built as a resource offering concrete, practical, creative, down-to-earth, and relatable support, founded on the values of psychoeducation and creative coping. It has grown to serve more than 3 million visitors each year. Litsa received her master's degree in Clinical Social Work from the University of Maryland School of Social Work, as well as a master’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Warwick (UK). She has been interviewed as a grief expert for the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and New York Times. She co-authored the 2022 book What's Your Grief: Lists to Help You Through Any Loss.

Disclosure

References

• Blandin, K., & Pepin, R. (2017). Dementia grief: A theoretical model of a unique grief experience. Dementia, 16(1), 67-78. https://doi.org/10.1177/1471301215581081
• Sawicka, M. (2017). Searching for a narrative of loss: Interactional ordering of ambiguous grief. Symbolic Interaction, 40(2), 229-246. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.270
• Zaksh, Y., Yehene, E., Elyashiv, M., & Altman, A. (2019). Partially dead, partially separated: establishing the mechanism between ambiguous loss and grief reaction among caregivers of patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness. Clinical rehabilitation, 33(2), 345-356. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269215518802339
• Kaur-Aujla, H., Lillie, K., & Wagstaff, C. (2022). Prognosticating COVID therapeutic responses: Ambiguous loss and disenfranchised grief. Frontiers in public health, 10, 799593. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.799593
• Worden, J. W. (2018). Grief counseling and grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company, LLC.
• Harris, D. L. (Ed.). (2019). Non-death loss and grief: Context and clinical implications. Routledge.
• Wade, B (2021). Grieving While Black: An Antiracist Take on Oppression and Sorrow. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
• Wayman, L. (2021). A Loving Approach to Dementia Care: Making Meaningful Connections while Caregiving. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.