Guiding Clients Through Grief

The price of this course is £150. Until end 9 August, we are offering an early bird discount of 20% which brings the cost down to £120. 

This course is also available to purchase on a payment plan. Please contact mark.busby@thecfc.org.uk to arrange your plan.

This practical and compassion-led training is designed for counsellors, therapists, and professionals in helping roles who support individuals experiencing grief, loss, and bereavement.

Aims of the Course

 

This course provides a grounded, clinically informed, and sensitive approach to working with grief. It aims to strengthen practitioners’ confidence in supporting clients through loss, deepening their understanding of grief as a complex and individual experience. Participants will explore how grief presents emotionally, cognitively, physically, and behaviourally, and develop the skills to respond with empathy, attunement, and therapeutic presence. The training also supports practitioners to work in a culturally aware and trauma informed way, recognising the diverse factors that shape each person’s experience of loss.

 

Course Content

This engaging and reflective training combines theory, practical application, and discussion to support real-world practice.

 

Participants will explore the language and foundations of grief, including bereavement, mourning, and loss, alongside the wide-ranging impacts these experiences can have on individuals. The course introduces key grief models, including attachment-based theories, the Dual Process Model, Continuing Bonds, and Meaning Reconstruction, and demonstrates how these can be applied flexibly in practice.

 

The session places strong emphasis on therapeutic skills, revisiting core counselling approaches such as attunement, reflection, silence, and emotional containment. Participants will explore what bereaved clients need from a helping relationship and how to respond with sensitivity and authenticity.

 

More complex presentations of grief are also explored, including prolonged, complicated, and disenfranchised grief, as well as the unique challenges associated with suicide bereavement. Guidance is provided to help practitioners recognise when additional support or intervention may be required.

 

The training also acknowledges the emotional impact of grief work on practitioners, introducing concepts such as compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and burnout. Practical strategies and wellbeing frameworks are shared to support resilience and sustainable practice.

 

Key Training Areas:

• Understanding grief, bereavement, mourning, and loss
• Emotional, cognitive, physical, and behavioural impacts of grief
• Key grief models and their application in practice
• Supporting clients with empathy, attunement, and presence
• Working with complicated, prolonged, and disenfranchised grief
• Understanding and supporting suicide bereavement
• Cultural and contextual influences on grief
• Practitioner wellbeing, resilience, and reflective practice

Angelina Ansell

Angelina is a CFC counsellor and facilitates our Bereavement and Loss weekly support group.
 

For more information on our courses, including making a booking or cancellation, please see course information.