Houston Psychoanalytic Society
Study Group
Healing After Parent Loss in Childhood and Adolescence
Facilitated by Ann Weiss, LPC
5 Tuesdays
March 29 - April 26, 2022
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM Central Time

Live via Zoom
*Pre-Registration required for Zoom invitation

Registration Fees
Active Members: $150
Friend Members: $190
Student Members: $75
Non-members: $225

7.5 CE/CME/CEUs

This basic to intermediate-level study group will utilize readings and discussion to help participants learn about helping children and adults who lost a parent in childhood or adolescence. We will examine the developmental considerations and psychodynamic theories that guide interventions for bereaved clients of various ages and sociocultural backgrounds, whether the parent’s death was anticipated or unexpected. This will include a review of Freud’s concept of mourning, evolving conceptualizations since then, and prior controversies such as whether children are capable of mourning. The group is open to clinicians who work with children, adolescents, and adults. Registration is limited to a relatively small number of participants in order to allow time for them to share and explore their own case material with the group. Participants should obtain a copy of the following textbook: Cohen, P., Sossin, K. M. & Ruth, R. (Eds., 2014). Healing After Parent Loss in Childhood and Adolescence: Therapeutic Interventions and Theoretical Considerations. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Each chapter is authored by different clinicians, written specifically for therapists, and richly illustrated with detailed case examples.

OBJECTIVES
  1. Distinguish between grief, mourning, and melancholia.
  2. Explain why some theoreticians previously considered children incapable of mourning.
  3. Describe 3 developmental considerations in children’s presentation of grief.
  4. Describe what is meant by incomplete, complicated, and traumatic grief.
  5. Describe ways that surviving caregivers can facilitate or impede the child’s mourning.
  6. Explain why a child who has lost a parent loses more than an adult whose parent died.
  7. Describe how unmourned loss can derail development.
  8. Identify 3 factors in the child’s personality and functioning that can assist in coping with grief.
  9. Explain why the surviving parent may be included in a young child’s therapy.
  10. Describe what is meant by working in the displacement in play therapy.
  11. Explain what it means to respect a client’s defense or join their resistance.
Schedule/Syllabus
March 29, 2022
Theory and statistics (Foreword & Chapter 1)

April 5, 2022
Working with young children who lost a parent (Chapters 2 & 4)

April 12, 2022
Working with clients in mid-childhood and adolescence who lost parents in latency (Chapters 3 & 6)

April 19, 2022
Working with bereaved adolescents (Chapters 5 & 7)

April 26, 2022
Working with adults who lost parents in childhood or adolescence (Chapters 8 & 9)
Facilitator
Ann Weiss, LPC, is a psychotherapist in Houston, Texas. She completed a postgraduate program in child psychodynamic psychotherapy at the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies in Houston, where she currently serves as an adjunct faculty member. In addition, she works as a mental health counselor at South Texas College of Law, where she has helped students for over 15 years. Ann previously served as the program director at a bereavement center in Houston for 10 years.  
Houston Psychoanalytic Society
1302 Waugh Dr. #276, Houston, TX 77019
(713) 429-5810
Houston Psychoanalytic Society is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Houston Psychoanalytic Society maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, as a co-sponsor of Houston Psychoanalytic Society. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of 7.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. 

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies* whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. 
*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company.
-Updated July 2021-

HPS, through co-sponsorship with the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, also offers approved CEs for social workers, licensed professional counselors, and marriage and family therapists.

Tombstone photos by R. David Puckett from Shutterstock