The Art of Holding What Hurts
Learn to Hold Grief with Care, Clarity, and Ethical Presence
Details:
A trauma-aware training for supporting others through loss and bereavement while sustaining your own emotional wellbeing.
Facilitated by Dr. Carolina Herbert
2 × 3 hour workshops over two days (6 teaching hours), June 27-28, 2026, 2pm-5pm GMT
Online via Zoom / In-person option available on request
Includes accredited CPD Certificate
Why This Training Matters
Grief is not linear, predictable, or neat.
It can be overwhelming, complex, delayed, or deeply silent—and for those supporting others, it often brings emotional weight that accumulates over time.
Without the right tools, practitioners may experience:
Emotional fatigue or burnout
Over-identification or emotional overwhelm
Uncertainty around how to respond
Difficulty holding boundaries in sensitive moments
This training helps you develop the capacity to hold grief safely, ethically, and sustainably—without losing yourself in the process.
Who This Is For
This training is for you if you:
Support individuals or communities through grief and loss
Work in therapeutic, coaching, educational, or care settings
Want to deepen your confidence in holding grief ethically
Need tools to prevent emotional exhaustion in grief work
Want to support others without absorbing their pain
What We’ll Explore Together
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Developmental responses to grief
Continuing bonds theory
Disenfranchised and ambiguous loss
Cultural and spiritual dimensions of grief
Complex and traumatic grief presentations
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How grief lives in the body
Trauma-aware understanding of loss
Dysregulation vs natural grief processing
When grief becomes “stuck”
Nervous system mapping of grief responses
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Symbol, ritual, and meaning-making
Narrative and storytelling approaches
Memory objects and metaphor work
Supporting expression without interpretation
Ethical use of creative tools in grief support
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Empathy vs emotional enmeshment
Compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma
Emotional boundaries in grief work
Staying present without taking on emotional weight
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Recognising scope of practice
Risk indicators in grief presentations
When to refer or seek supervision
Working within safeguarding and organisational frameworks
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Supervision and reflective practice
Emotional processing after sessions
Micro-regulation strategies
Rituals for closure and recovery
Building long-term sustainability in grief work
What You’ll Learn
By the end of this training, you will be able to:
Identify different grief responses across children, young people, and adults
Understand complicated, traumatic, and delayed grief presentations
Use creative and relational approaches to support meaning-making
Recognise your own emotional responses in grief work
Know when referral or specialist support is required
Build reflective self-care practices to reduce burnout and compassion fatigue
Grief cannot be fixed, rushed, or avoided.
But it can be held—with presence, care, and integrity.
This training supports you in developing the capacity to stay steady in the presence of what hurts, while also staying connected to yourself.