LIVE WEBINAR | Living grief: Building client resilience in the face of life's futilities and ambiguous losses

Event Locations
Online

Event Start: Monday, 20 April 2026 at 01:00 PM

Event End: Monday, 20 April 2026 at 03:00 PM

Venue: Online via Microsoft Teams

Presenter: Dr Ruth Lawson-McConnell

Last year we presented a well-received webinar on “Working with loss: An attachment-informed, internal family systems approach” which predominantly focused on grief relating to death and bereavement. In this second webinar, Ruth will explore the concept of ‘living grief‘ – a term to describe non-death related grief, including ambiguous losses and inevitable human futilities. These may include invisible losses like infertility, miscarriages, failing health, being passed over for a promotion again, the loss of a hoped-for future, family estrangement or loneliness in a long-term committed relationship, to name a few.

With insights from Attachment Theory Ruth will present how we can help clients navigate living grief by staying adaptive, soft-hearted and healthily ‘finding our tears’ so that clients can get ‘better, not bitter’. Neufeld’s model of Frustration-Adaptation-Aggression will be used as a framework to work with living grief. Using an Internal Family Systems approach, Ruth will present what self-led grieving over life’s futilities, ambiguous losses, cumulative and complex living grief might look like.

For more information click the button below or contact Cathy Williams on events@griefcentre.org.nz.

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