• live event Info
  • Ce Approvals
  • Ce Process
  • Policies

Ethics and Personal Loss, Countertransference, and Self-Disclosure in Grief Support

CE Hours 3

About this live event

Recordings and session materials will be available on your attendee dashboard for 6 months after the session. If you are interested in this workshop to earn CEs but cannot attend the live session, please consider registering for one of our self paced CE courses. View all our self paced courses by clicking "All Courses" tab at the top this page. While historically psychology, counseling, and social work discouraged self-disclosure, in recent years researchers and clinicians have adopted a far more nuanced approach to the use of self-disclosure. Unfortunately, there still remains limited education and training around countertransference and self-disclosure in clinical practice. These topics are particularly important in grief practice and therapy, as clients often seek clinicians with a shared personal grief experience. The last 2.5 years have seen an increase in clients seeking grief support and an increase in the number of clinicians who have experienced personal loss and are navigating its impact in their professional work. Through the lens of professional ethical standards and current research, this workshop will outline considerations for assessing the clinical value and appropriateness of self-disclosure through examination of context and content. It will review types of countertransference and the intersection between countertransference, self-disclosure, and personal loss, specifically in end-of-life and grief support. The session will provide clinicians with self-assessment tools to better identify countertransference in their client work. It will also offer concrete strategies to improve clinical competence when utilizing self-disclosure, monitoring the impact of disclosures, and responding to unintended or unexpected client reactions.

Learning Objectives

  • Describe two common types of counter transference in end of life and grief support and techniques to appropriately respond and manage these reaction to clients
  • Identify at least one ethical principle related to the use of self-disclosure in end of life and grief support.
  • Identify at least two potential positive clinical impacts of self-disclosure and two potential negative clinical impacts of self-disclosure.
  • Describe at least three recent research findings regarding self-disclosure and countertransference in grief support.

Learning Levels

  • Intermediate

Agenda

12:00-12:45 Defining concepts

  • Self-disclosure definitions and types
  • Counter-transference definitions and types
  • Specific relevance to grief and end of life support
  • Relevant ethical principles

12:45-1:30 The impact of personal losses – client and clinician perspectives

  • Client perceptions of self-disclosure
  • Clinician awareness of counter-transference and self-disclosure

1:30-1:45 Break

1:45-2:15 Assessment of personal loss management

  • What does it mean to have sufficiently “processed” personal loss?
  • Assessing the impact of personal grief on clinical work. 

2:15-3:00 Tools and interventions

  • Guidelines for ethical self-disclosure
  • Personal work and targeted self-care
  • Addressing counter-transference 
  • Addressing missteps and related problems

3:00-3:15 Application to practice

  • Relevance to specific clinical experience.
  • Questions and close

Live event Instructor(s)

  • 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.

  • 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.

Disclosure

DISCLOSURE OF RELEVANT FINANCIAL RELATIONSHIPS CE Learning Systems adheres to the ACCME’s Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Medical Education. Any individuals in a position to control the content of a CE activity ― including faculty, planners, reviewers, or others ― are required to disclose all relevant financial relationships with ineligible entities (formerly known as commercial interests). The following relevant financial relationships have been disclosed by this activity’s planners, faculty, and the reviewer: PLANNERS AND REVIEWER The planners of this activity have reported that they have no relevant financial relationships. FACULTY The faculty of this activity have reported that they have no relevant financial relationships.

CE Process Info

Each professional is responsible for the individual requirements as stipulated by his/her licensing agency. Please contact your individual licensing board/regulatory agency to review continuing education requirements for licensure renewal. Please note: You must attend "live" (in real-time) to earn CE credits.

Before the event, you will receive an email from CE-Go with access to the virtual event. After the event, you will receive access to your evaluation and continuing education certificate via a personalized "attendee dashboard" link, hosted on the CE-Go website. This link and access to the virtual event will be sent to the email account you used to register for the event.

Upon accessing the CE-Go "attendee dashboard", you will be able to:

  • Complete evaluation forms for the event
  • Download your continuing education certificate in a PDF format

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the CE-Go platform, please contact CE-Go at 888-498-5578 or by email at support@ce-go.com Please Note: Emails for this event will come from "support@ce-go.com".

If you have any continuing education related questions, please contact your event organizer.

Please make sure to check your spam/junk folder in case those emails get "stuck". We'd also suggest "Allowlisting" support@ce-go.com. This tells your email client that you know this sender and trust them, which will keep emails from this contact at the top of your inbox and out of the junk folder.

  • Maryland Board of Social Work Examiners (MBSW)

    What's Your Grief is authorized by the Board of Social Work Examiners in Maryland to sponsor social work continuing education learning activities and maintains full responsibility for this program. This training qualifies for XX Category I continuing education units.

  • Minnesota Board of Social Work (MN BOSW)

    What's Your Gref is an active Minnesota Board of Social Work approved continuing education provider CEP-2480

CELS Grievance

If a grievance arises pertaining to continuing education activities or processes, please contact Tyler Gibson via confidential email to tyler@celearningsystems.com as soon as possible, so that the nature of the concern may be addressed in a timely fashion.

Disability Accommodation

ADA accommodations will be made in accordance with the law; please indicate your special needs when you register by sending an email to support@ce-go.com or by calling us at 877 498 5578.

Refund

If you find that you are unable to attend an event, you may request a full refund at any time before the start of the live event. Refunds will not be issued after the start time of the live event. A recording of the event will be made available to all registrants within one week from the live event. If you have any questions or concerns about this policy, please contact: whatsyourgrief@gmail.com. 

Cancellation

Should this event be cancelled for any reason, What's Your Grief will make every effort to reschedule the event. Registrants will be given the option to be enrolled in the rescheduled session or will be issued a full refund. If the event cannot be rescheduled, all participants will receive a full refund. 

Technology

1. This virtual event will be hosted via Zoom Webinar, and you may be prompted to download or upgrade your Zoom app if using a mobile device. A strong WiFi connection will be required for best quality.


2. We recommend clicking your "Join Webinar" button early and checking that your speakers are on before the event begins. Please do not worry about being seen or heard! Attendee video feeds and mics are turned off by default when entering a webinar. You will be able to ask questions via the Q&A feature.


3. Please respect that no copying, recording, or distribution of live session content is allowed. CE's are provided for the "live" sessions only. CE's will not be available for the recordings.

Ethics and Personal Loss, Countertransference, and Self-Disclosure in Grief Support
You Have Completed This course
$45.00 - $70.00
You are enrolled
  • CE Hours
    3
  • Type
    Live Interactive Webinar
  • Date
    Thu Oct 16th, 2025
  • Time
    12:00pm - 03:15pm EDT

Reset password


Reset your password by providing your email below





Next

We sent a reset password link to the email address you provided.


{{reset.email}}


If you do not see the email, try checking your junk or spam folder.


If you don't receive a link in the email you provided, please click the button below to resend the verification email.

Resend

Please wait {{timer}} seconds to resend



Next

Sign in


Enter your email to get started.




Next

Sign in


Good news! Your email is associated with an account. Enter your password or click here to reset it




Login

Thanks for signing up!


We sent an verification email to the address you provided. Please check your email to verify your email address.


{{signup.email}}


If you do not see the email, try checking your junk or spam folder.


If you don't receive a link in the email you provided, please click the button below to resend the verification email.



Resend

Please wait {{timer}} seconds to resend

Sign up




Sign up

Shopping Cart


Items
Price
Remove
  • {{ item.name }}

    {{ item.credit_hours }} Credits
    {{ item.coupons.map((c)=> c.code).join(', ') }}
    ${{ item.totals.price }}
    ${{ item.totals.total_price }}
Apply


Cart is empty

Thank you for your purchase


To access the course content, click the button below. Enrolled courses may be accessed at any time by going to your Account and clicking Courses


Go to Course

Thank you for your purchase

To access your courses, please click the button below. Enrolled courses may be accessed at any time by going to your Account and clicking either Events or Courses


My Account

Payment

{{$store.state.payment.paymentErrorMessage }}
Pay now