This webinar will introduce Attachment Informed Grief Therapy, which emphasizes how grief, a relational loss, can be supported using a relational approach, using the qualities of the therapeutic relationship to heal attachment-based difficulties in emotional regulation among grievers. This approach to grief therapy builds on research underscoring the role of attachment security in the development of cognitive and affective capacities to respond adaptively to stress, including the stress of bereavement. Clinical examples and videos will illustrate how to help clients with diverse attachment orientations identify, express, and modulate emotions, addressing relational needs to create a safe space for entering the often-frightening realm of grief.

Learning Objectives:

1. Explain the role of the grief therapist as a transitional attachment figure and describe the clinical skills that are core elements of an effective therapeutic relationship with bereaved clients.
2. Explain recent findings regarding the impact of early attachment experience on attachment style and on the development of the capacity for emotion regulation.
3. Learn to identify and address deficits in emotion regulation as they contribute to complications in grief.

About the Presenter:

Over the past thirty years, Phyllis Kosminsky, PhD, LCSW, FT, has provided counseling and support to bereaved individuals in her private practice and at the Center for Hope in Darien, Connecticut. She has conducted hundreds of trainings nationally and internationally on grief, loss and life transitions and has published widely on these topics. In 2023, the second edition of her groundbreaking and inspiring book Attachment Informed Grief Therapy: The Clinician's Guide to Foundations and Applications, co-authored by John R. Jordan, was published by Routledge. Phyllis teaches in the School of Social Services at Fordham University in New York and is on the faculty of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition. She is a Past President of the Association for Death Education and Counseling, and a member of the International Work Group on Grief, Bereavement and Loss. In 2014 she was appointed a Fellow in Thanatology by the ADEC, in recognition of her contributions to education, research, and clinical practice related to coping with grief. In 2024 Dr. Kosminsky was honored to receive ADEC’s Clinical Practice Award in recognition of her work as a grief therapist and her contributions to the field.