1. Grief Overview: Grief, Bereavement, and Traumatic Loss

• Types of Grief and Implications for Treatment
• Challenging Traditional Assumptions About Grief Progression
• Normalizing What Feels Abnormal for Clients in Grief
• Grief and Loss Across the Lifespan
• Exploration of Multicultural and Spiritual Considerations

2. Trauma-Informed Approach to the Grief Intake and Assessment Process

• Differentiating Grief Counseling vs. Grief Therapy
• Boundaries of professional competence: scope, referral thresholds, and
• Intake and Assessment Considerations

3. Neuroscience of Traumatic Loss, Grief, and Recovery: Amygdala, Prefrontal Cortex, and Beyond

• The brain’s response to loss: threat detection, attachment systems, memory networks
• Amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and autonomic nervous system patterns in grief
• Cognitive, emotional, somatic, and physiological responses to loss
• Separation anxiety and attachment activation in grief
• Clinical translation: how neuroscience informs pacing, language, and sequencing

4. Building the Foundational Neuroplasticity Intervention Toolkit

• Clinical Tracking Tools for Trauma-Informed Interventions and Recovery
• Bottom-Up and Top-Down Interventions: Review of the literature and mechanisms of action
• Ethical Issues, Clinical Considerations, Risks, and Limitations

5. Treating Traumatic Encodings in Traumatic Loss

• Pacing and Phase-based Treatment – Building the Intervention Plan
• Assessing Client Readiness for Trauma Intervention
• Navigating Amygdala Hyperreactivity Through a Trauma-Informed Lens
• Four-Step Process for Titrated Trauma Desensitization

6. Sudden Death Due to Violence, Suicide Loss, and/or Overdose

• Sudden and violent loss profiles: traumatic activation, anger, moral pain, system stressors
• Suicide and overdose bereavement: responsibility narratives, secrecy, shame, stigma
• Vicarious trauma – when a grieving person is repeatedly exposed to other people’s trauma physiology
• Generational trauma – how inherited survival patterns shape grief expression, pacing, and meaning
• Trauma-informed care considerations and clinical boundaries

7. Survivor’s Guilt Through a Neuropsychological Perspective with Clinical Application

• Understanding survivor’s guilt: context and manifestations
• Neuropsychological perspective on survivor’s guilt
• Clinical techniques for addressing survivor’s guilt
• Cognitive and somatic interventions for softening the guilt loop
• Navigating regret and resentment to find forgiveness
• Foster post-traumatic growth after suicide loss and overdose

8. Treating Yearning in Prolonged Grief Disorder

• The inception and maintenance of yearning
• Trauma-informed interventions for treating yearning in prolonged grief disorder
• Limitations of the research, clinical considerations, and risk factors

9. Disenfranchised Grief in Death and Non-Death Losses

• Psychological and emotional impact of disenfranchised grief
• Disenfranchised grief and death vs. non-death losses
• What stays the same in intervention, and what must shift

10. Secondary Grief and Exploring the Ripple Effects of Loss

• Exploring the ripple effects: the concept of secondary loss
• Identifying and therapeutic interventions for secondary losses in therapy and at-home
• Navigating anger and resentment
• Daily recovery practices for navigating the pain of secondary losses

11. Navigating Ambiguous Loss with Neuroplasticity

• The types of ambiguous loss
• The impact of ambiguous loss on family systems
• Specialized neuroscience-based interventions for the treatment of ambiguous grief

12. Special Considerations Working with the Terminally Ill and Their Families

• Psychological care and interventions for end-of-life care for clients and families
• Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and the Stages of Grief
• Managing clinician vulnerability in end-of-life settings

13. Grief and Loss Groups: Structure, Safety, and Clinical Application

• Grief and loss groups: when groups help, when they harm, and how to decide
• Group structure that protects the nervous system
• Ethical principles and boundaries in group grief work

14. Thriving After Loss: Posttraumatic Growth, Resilience, and Recovery

• Beyond survival: defining and facilitating posttraumatic growth
• Empowerment in grief: tools for building strength and resilience

15. Self-Care for the Grief Professional

• Introduction to vicarious trauma, burnout, and compassion fatigue
• Generational trauma and cumulative exposure: why some grief cases hit harder than others, and what to do about it clinically and personally
• Consultation thresholds: when the clinician’s nervous system becomes part of the clinical risk picture