Grief and Loss in Families Series - Separation and Divorce from Meaning Reconstruction Perspectives
What's In It For Me
Upcoming Schedule: 19 - 20 January 2026 (Registration opening on 21 July 2025)
Course Overview
As a couple separates and a marriage is dissolved, all the parties involved are bound to experience multiple losses, ranging from practical and tangible losses like financial stability and matrimonial house, to implicit and ambiguous losses like sense of self and relational bonds. In the process of transition, different grief reactions and repercussions may emerge, as each party has to relearn about life and relationship, as well as re-establish one’s self-concept and social world. This training will invite you to look at separation and divorce and other forms of relationship dissolution from a grief and loss and meaning reconstruction perspective. This will also equip you to use meaning oriented intervention tools to facilitate one’s transition and adaptation in the aftermath.
Course Objectives
· To examine the impacts of separation and divorce using a tripartite model of meaning reconstruction
· To describe the myriad of loss and grief in the process of separation and divorce
· To apply meaning reconstruction perspectives in facilitating post-separation / divorce adaptation
Who Should Attend
All counsellors, social workers, psychologists, teachers and principals, pastoral staff, and people involved in the helping profession.
Course Duration
2 days (9am - 5pm)
Course Outline
· An assumptive world shattered by separation and divorce
· A conversation frame to elicit intangible, ambiguous and/or disenfranchised loss in separation and divorce
· Use of Restorative Retelling to facilitate processing and reintegration of the relational loss
· Application of The Relationship Tree to help clients address relational ambivalence and reconstruct their identity and life narratives
· Use of creative rituals to signify closure, transition and/or new beginning
· A “Holding Frame” for children through parental separation and divorce
Certification Obtained and Conferred by
Participants who meet 75% class attendance will be awarded a Certificate of Completion by Portland Institute for Loss and Transition & Academy of Human Development.
For certification enquiries, please email carolyn@portlandinstitute.org
Medium of Instruction & Trainer
Dr Carolyn Ng, PsyD, FT, MMSAC, RegCLR maintains a private practice, Anchorage for Loss and Transition, for training, supervision and therapy in Singapore, while also serving as an Associate Director of the Portland Institute. Previously she served as Principal Counsellor with the Children’s Cancer Foundation in Singapore, specialising in cancer-related palliative care and bereavement counselling. She is a registered counsellor, master clinical member and approved supervisor with the Singapore Association for Counselling (SAC), a Fellow in Thanatology with the Association of Death Education and Counselling (ADEC), USA, as well as a consultant to a cancer support and bereavement ministry in Sydney, Australia. She is a trained end-of-life doula and advanced care planning facilitator. She is also trained in the Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) by the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, USA, community crisis response by the National Organisation for Victim Assistance (NOVA), USA, as well as Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) by LivingWorks, Canada. Her recent writing concerns meaning-oriented narrative reconstruction with bereaved families, with an emphasis on conversational approaches for fostering new meaning and action.Find out more at: www.anchorage-for-loss.org.
Dr Robert A.Neimeyer, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus of the Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, and maintains an active consulting and coaching practice. He also directs the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition (www.portlandinstitute.org), which provides online training internationally in grief therapy. Neimeyer has published 33 books, including the Handbook of Grief Therapies and New Techniques of Grief Therapy: Bereavement and Beyond, and serves as Editor of the journal Death Studies. The author of over 600 articles and book chapters and a frequent workshop presenter, he is currently working to advance a more adequate theory of grieving as a meaning-making process. Neimeyer served as President of the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) and Chair of the International Work Group for Death, Dying, & Bereavement. In recognition of his scholarly contributions, he has been granted the Eminent Faculty Award by the University of Memphis, made a Fellow of the Clinical Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association, and given Lifetime Achievement Awards by both ADEC and the International Network on Personal Meaning
Funding Information
NCSS member and MSF-funded Social Service Agencies are able to apply for PCG Funding (Funding outcome to be made known in early Sept 2025).
Additional Notes
Venue: Lifelong Learning Institute (Room TBC)
Course Pre-Requisites
Price
| Discount / Promotion Fee (Apply to original fee only) |
Fee Payable After Discount / Promotion (Before GST) | |
|---|---|---|
| Early Bird Fee *Refer to EB closing date below | $900.00 | |
| Course Fee Payable | ||
| Original Fee | Before GST | With GST (9%) |
| Course Fee | $975.00 | $1,062.75 |
Early Bird Fee (before GST): S$900 (register & pay 4 December 2025)
* Early Bird Discount will be reflected during payment checkout / billing invoice
Please note that prices are subjected to change.