Grief Tending Experiential Day

Grief is not only present after a death.

It can arise through change, rupture, absence, unmet needs, lost possibilities, transitions, developmental experiences and the many ways life does not unfold as we hoped.

Yet grief is often narrowed to bereavement, or treated as a separate subject rather than something woven through attachment, identity, trauma, belonging, change and loss.

Hosted by TTI UK in collaboration with Embracing Grief CIC, this experiential day offers practitioners a supported space to explore grief in its wider forms, deepen their awareness of their own relationship with grief and develop a greater capacity to recognise and stay present with grief in therapeutic work.

This workshop is for:

• Counsellors, psychotherapists and other mental health practitioners
• Practitioners who want to broaden their understanding of grief beyond bereavement
• Those interested in embodied, relational, creative and ritual approaches to grief
• Practitioners who want to feel more able to recognise and meet grief in themselves and in their work with clients

What You Will Experience

The day will centre around two carefully held experiential practices, supported by time for preparation, reflection and integration.

You will be invited to take part in:

• A creative writing and drawing practice in small groups, offering a way to approach grief through images, words and shared witnessing
• A Truth Mandala, an embodied sharing circle that creates space for different expressions of grief to be felt and witnessed within the group

Both practices are designed to help participants move beyond analysis and verbal reflection alone, and to explore what may become available through the body, creativity and relationship.

This may be particularly valuable for practitioners who are accustomed to meeting experience primarily through thinking and talking within therapeutic settings.

Alongside the two central practices, there will be space to explore:

• grief as a response to many forms of loss, rupture and change
• your own relationship with grief
• the difference between opening to grief, expressing grief and witnessing grief
• the importance of pacing, consent, support and integration
• how we prepare for and return from experiential grief work with care
• what it may mean to recognise and stay present with grief in therapeutic work

The intention is not to train participants to facilitate Grief Tending. Instead, the day offers an opportunity to deepen your own awareness and embodied capacity, so that you may become more able to recognise grief in yourself and meet it with greater sensitivity in your work with clients.

Participation will be invitational throughout. You will be encouraged to remain attentive to your own capacity, boundaries and level of engagement.