65th Annual Conference

Saturday, February 23

Morning Workshops

8:45 A.M.- 12:00 Noon

Workshop 87        

On the Edge of Goodbye: Complicated Loss in Group Psychotherapy

Chair:

Jennifer S. Harp, Ph.D., CGP, Private Practice, State College, Pennsylvania

Ambiguous and traumatic losses in group psychotherapy evoke a variety of profound and confusing feelings in the group, its members and its leaders. This experiential workshop will explore the significant impact of complicated and inevitable losses, as well as the unexpected opportunities such events hold for understanding, healing, and growth.
experiential-sharing of work experiences-didactic-demonstration
 

Learning Objectives:

The attendee will be able to:
1. Explain the significance and inter-relationships of termination, loss, and meaning-making in the developmental life of the group.
2. Distinguish among various clinical approaches that are likely to promote or discourage group adaptation and working through in the midst of traumatic or ambiguous group loss.
3. Analyze own experiences with loss in a manner that allows for greater effectiveness in clinical work and group experience.
4. Describe and more fully understand own reactions and resistances to loss, disruption, change, and group difficulty as an aspect of self that has unique meaning and related meaning for the group.
 

Course References:

1. Boss, P. (1999). Ambiguous loss: Learning to live with unresolved grief. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
2. Kauffman, J. (2002). Loss of the assumptive world: A theory of traumatic loss. New York: Taylor & Francis.
3. Novick, J. (1997). Termination: Conceivable and inconceivable. Psychoanalytic psychology, 14, 145-162.