Description:
Grief can emerge in response to many forms of loss, including the death of loved ones, shifts in identity, role, health, relationships, political and social realities, and imagined futures, as well as experiences of prolonged and collective grief.
In this workshop, participants will be introduced to narrative therapy and its application to grief and loss. Narrative therapy is based on the understanding that people make sense of their lives through stories. Rather than viewing people as the problem, narrative therapists see problems as experiences that affect people’s lives, relationships, and sense of self. In the context of grief, this perspective creates space to explore how loss may influence a person’s life without allowing grief to become the defining story of who they are or of the relationship they shared with their loved one.
Participants will examine how loss can disrupt the continuity of a person’s story, creating gaps or contradictions across past, present, and future. The workshop focuses on active narrative construction, supporting clients to interpret their stories in ways that help them make sense of what has changed and what still matters.
Participants will learn clinical skills including externalizing grief and loss, mapping the effects of loss across identity and relationships, asking questions that illuminate meaning, values, and preferred ways of living, identifying openings in dominant grief narratives, and facilitating re-membering conversations that reconnect people with the ongoing influence of significant relationships and the values, stories, and legacies that continue to shape their lives. The workshop includes demonstrations, guided practice, and experiential exercises, with opportunities to reflect on participants’ own experiences of loss.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the training participants will be able to:
- Explore the core ideas and values that inform narrative approaches to grief and loss work.
- Consider how grief and loss are shaped by personal, relational, cultural, and societal stories.
- Identify alternative stories of grief and loss that open space for hope, meaning, and possibility.
- Practice conversations that help people reconnect with their values, strengths, relationships, and preferred ways of moving forward in the aftermath of loss.
- Explore ways of linking past, present, and future through re-authoring conversations that honor both loss and continued living.
- Engage in experiential and reflective activities designed to deepen understanding of narrative concepts and practices in grief counseling.
- Apply remembering conversations to sustain meaningful connections with loved ones after loss.
Presenter:
Trainer: Mauricio Yabar, Ph.D., LCSW, M.Ed. is an Assistant Professor of Social Work and Program Director of the Master of Social Work (MSW) Program at Slippery Rock University. Mauricio has over a decade of clinical experience working with adolescents, adults, couples, and families across various practice settings. His clinical work focuses on trauma, youth sexual offending, sexual compulsivity, and substance use. Mauricio’s current research centers on topics related to gay and bisexual men, families of youth who have sexually offended, and forensic social work. His scholarship primarily employs qualitative methodologies to explore how individuals make meaning of their experiences within broader social, cultural, and systemic contexts. He draws on social constructionist, reflexive, and narrative-based philosophies to guide his clinical practice, research, and teaching.
References:
- Ah-fat, A. (2024). When grief arrives: An oral history of grief and death within queer, trans and black, indigenous and people of colour communities. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 2024(2), 51-63. https://doi.org/10.4320/LOYL4397
- Elinger, G., Hasson-Ohayon, I., Bar-Shachar, Y., & Peri, T. (2023). Narrative reconstruction therapy for prolonged grief disorder: Basic interventions and mechanisms of change. Death Studies, 47(10), 1082-1093. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2022.2164633
- Matta, T. (2021). Treating caregiver grief with narrative therapy. Innovation in Aging, 5(Supplement_1), 1050-1051. https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igab046.3750
- Nelson, K., Lukawiecki, J., Waitschies, K., Jackson, E., & Zivot, C. (2024). Exploring the impacts of an art and narrative therapy program on participants’ grief and bereavement experiences. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 90(2), 726-745. https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228221111726
- Wingard, B. (2025). Telling our stories in ways that make us stronger by Aunty Barbara Wingard, read by Jean McMahon. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 2025(2)https://doi.org/10.4320/ZKPA8661
- Yılmaz, T., & Karakuş, C. (2026). Psychotherapeutic interventions used in psychological treatment studies with syrian refugees: A systematic review. Trauma, Violence & Abuse, 27(1), 177-189. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380241306029
UNC Chapel Hill – Clinical Institute Program