The goal of this workshop is to introduce and train mental health professionals about the uses of Ambiguous Loss with families and communities affected by traumatic events. Emphases will include losses related to physical and mental health/status, family structure transitions, war, climate disasters, and cross-generational traumatic losses resulting from enslavement, genocide, and continued racism and injustices endured by marginalized families.
We must “see and name” losses that have been hidden in plain sight before change will happen. The stress of change will be discussed for both the people we work with, as well as for ourselves as therapists. Clinicians will develop knowledge and skills to effectively support families in what Dr. Pauline Boss describes as the most difficult and unacknowledged relational loss — and its understandably prolonged grief and anxiety. Dr. Elizabeth Wieling has collaborated with Dr. Boss in co-facilitating multiple Ambiguous Loss trainings.
Learning Objectives:
- To understand the concept of Ambiguous Loss and its theoretical underpinnings – and apply more broadly to intergenerational traumas and global changes
- To see more clearly the effects of Ambiguous Loss on individuals, families and communities – including disparities and injustices that cause more losses
- To understand the neurobiology of traumatic stress and relational consequences of complex traumas, including intergenerational trauma from unacknowledged/unresolved ambiguous losses
- To practice the recommended paradoxical interventions and the dialectics of both/and thinking to understand that seeing, acknowledging losses, and changing are the therapeutic goals, not closure
- To review and apply the six guidelines for living with Ambiguous Loss and its unresolved and prolonged grief
Presenter:
Elizabeth Wieling, PhD, LMFT is a Professor and Program Director of Marriage and Family Therapy Program at the University of Georgia. Her program of research is focused on preventive and clinical intervention models that demonstrate effectiveness with systematically marginalized and trauma-affected populations in the United States and abroad. She has expanded her work to include a multi-component interdisciplinary agenda that includes developing ecologically and culturally relevant interventions. Specifically, she uses Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) with individuals to address complex post-traumatic stress; GenerationPMTO with parents to interrupt intergenerational transmission of psychopathology and violence; and Ambiguous Loss to support immigrant and refugee families.
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Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Global Change
April 11, 2025
10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Elizabeth Wieling, PhD, LMFT
3 CE Contact Hours
Online