Treating Grief-Stricken Clients: Culturally Sensitive Interventions
Four people. A woman who has kept her husband’s clothes in the wardrobe for six years. A man who has not been back to a particular restaurant since his brother died. A daughter who talks to her mother’s photograph every morning. A father who falls apart every year on the same date, a decade on. Which of them is grieving abnormally?
Tiffani Dilworth’s answer is none of them, and she is blunt about why the question is a trap. You have no idea what is normal for anyone else in their grief. Which means the clinical judgment you are making without noticing it, that this client is taking too long or holding on too tightly or not showing enough, is usually your own frame rather than an assessment.
Six hours built around that. She separates grief, the internal experience, from mourning, the external expression, and keeps the distinction working throughout, because a client who appears not to be grieving may simply be mourning in a way you were not taught to recognise. She covers the grief types clinicians meet and often misread, including absent grief, inhibited grief, abbreviated grief, masked grief that arrives as physical symptoms, exaggerated grief that develops into a phobia, and disenfranchised grief where the loss is real and nobody around the client will acknowledge it. She works through loss that involves no death at all: divorce, job loss, retirement, relocation, declining health, a friendship ending, a new person in the family, the last child leaving home.
You’ll walk away with
- The distinction between grief and mourning, used as a clinical tool rather than a definition, so you can tell a private griever from a client who is not grieving
- Acute, integrated and prolonged grief mapped out, with integrated grief treated as the destination rather than the absence of feeling, and anniversary reactions understood as part of it rather than a relapse
- An exercise that shows you your own assumptions about normal grieving before you take them into a session
- The grief types clinicians most often miss: absent, inhibited, abbreviated, masked, exaggerated, anticipatory and disenfranchised, each with what it looks like in the room and where to start
- Masked grief presenting as physical symptoms, and the case that shows how a client’s pain resolved once the loss underneath it was worked with
- Losses that involve no death, and why clients will not name them as grief unless you do first
- Culture and spirituality handled as questions to ask rather than a set of profiles to memorise, including what to do when a client’s grief practice makes no sense to you at all
- Grief across development, from babies and toddlers through preschool, primary school, adolescence and adulthood, with language for parents and the euphemisms to avoid with young children
- A working knowledge of grief assessment instruments and quick screening approaches, and what each is actually for
- Grief models applied to cases, including the dual process model, task-based approaches, narrative work, anticipated trajectory, the ATTEND model and CBT-based techniques
- Interventions you can use on Monday: grief monitoring diaries, directed journaling, family sculpting, memory boxes, imprints work, metaphor work and connection exercises for individuals and groups
- Ethics and professional boundaries with grieving clients, including the memorial service question and where your own limits sit
- Normalising as the through-line, since much of what a grieving client needs is to be told that what they are doing is not wrong
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CPD Information For Mental Health Professionals
Enjoy complete flexibility with 100% self-paced learning you can access anytime, anywhere, and on any device. This course is included with your Tatra Training membership, along with every other course in the library.
Course Duration: 6 learning hours
Certificate and CPD hours: On completion you’ll receive a Certificate of Completion to support your CPD records. Your certificates are yours to keep.
Assessment: Complete a short quiz at the end (80% pass mark), which you can resit as many times as needed.
Revisit Anytime: Come back to the course as often as you like while your membership is active, whenever you want a refresher for practice.
CPD Eligibility: This program may be suitable for CPD for professionals such as:
- Psychologists
- Counsellors and Psychotherapists
- Social Workers
- Community Workers
- Mental Health Nurses
- General Practitioners (GPs)
- Occupational Therapists
CPD requirements vary between professional bodies, so please check with your association or credentialing body to confirm you can claim CPD hours/OPD points for this program and what evidence they require.
Course Content
Meet Your Instructor
Individuals struggling with grief who are told to "get over it" or "move on" - and practitioners working with clients whose grief doesn't follow expected timelines or presentations - can need more than traditional approaches to understand that grief is not a problem to solve but a natural part of life to live alongside. Tiffani Dilworth has dedicated over a decade to revolutionising how we understand and treat grief, becoming an internationally recognised expert who helps people learn to "live alongside their grief" rather than trying to overcome it.
As Host of the Managing My Grief Podcast and Fellow in Thanatology with the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC), Dilworth brings specialised expertise that bridges clinical training with authentic understanding of the grieving process. Her role as Host of Grief Summit 2022 alongside renowned experts David Kessler, Megan Devine, Megan McQuary, and Litsa Williams demonstrates her recognition as a leading voice in contemporary grief work. Her books 11 Tools to Help Manage the Aftermath of Trauma and Types of Grief reflect her commitment to making grief education accessible while challenging cultural taboos around discussing loss and bereavement.
Dilworth's expertise spans grief counseling, prolonged grief disorder, multicultural grief counseling, sexual trauma, religious trauma, PTSD, and what she describes as helping clients understand the "different kinds of grief" that aren't widely recognised. Her approach recognises that grief isn't limited to death - it encompasses divorce, job loss, health changes, relationship endings, and any significant life transition that involves loss. She specialises in working with clients whose grief has been disenfranchised or misunderstood, those experiencing complicated or prolonged grief reactions, and practitioners wanting to develop authentic expertise in contemporary grief work.
What sets her training apart is cultural wisdom combined with clinical expertise. Dilworth doesn't just teach grief theory - she shows practitioners how to help clients navigate a culture that actively discourages healthy grieving while developing skills to support natural grief processes. Her emphasis on "living alongside grief" rather than "getting over it" reflects her understanding that healing doesn't mean returning to who you were before loss occurred.
For your practice, expect to gain specific techniques for different types of grief presentations, tools for supporting clients through prolonged or complicated grief, and frameworks for helping clients develop healthy relationships with their ongoing grief experiences. Her approach particularly benefits practitioners working with trauma survivors, those treating clients with complicated grief reactions, or clinicians wanting to develop expertise in contemporary grief counseling approaches.
Quick Win: Dilworth helps clients and clinicians move beyond rigid “stage models,” reframing grief as an ongoing experience to live alongside rather than something to “get over.” This shift can provide the first real sense of validation people receive for the uniqueness of their grief.
Qualifications
- MA, Community Counseling, Oklahoma State University
- Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC)
- Fellow in Thanatology (FT), Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC)
- Certified Advanced Grief Counseling Specialist (CAGCS)
- State Approved Trainer for grief education and continuing education
- Over a decade of experience in mental health care industry
Authored Publications
- Types of Grief (author, workbook format covering different grief types, available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Lulu)
- 11 Tools to Help Manage the Aftermath of Trauma (author, self-published practical strategies for trauma survivors, available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Lulu)
Professional Experience
- Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, Private Practice, current
- Affiliate, PsychExperts & Associates, Inc., Baltimore, MD, current
- International Speaker, Grief counseling, current
- Worked with: Core Wellness, Telehealth, At Health, Edmond Counseling & Professional Development, E-Care Behavioral Health Institute, PESI
Media & Speaking
- International Speaker
- Keynote Speaker for youth, college students, church groups, women's groups, conferences, and workshops
- Host, Managing My Grief Podcast (managingmygrief.buzzsprout.com)
- Host, Grief Summit 2022 (alongside David Kessler, Megan Devine, Megan McQuary, Litsa Williams)
- Presenter, Grief Summit 2023
- Guest, Beyond Clarity radio show
- Featured expert on various grief-related platforms and media
Clinical Specialties
- Grief counseling and bereavement support
- Prolonged grief disorder and complicated grief
- Multicultural grief counseling approaches
- Sexual trauma and religious trauma treatment
- PTSD and trauma therapy
- Thanatology (death, dying, and bereavement)
- Couples therapy with grief and loss components
Innovation & Philosophy
- Pioneer in "living alongside grief" rather than "getting over it" approach
- Expert in different types of grief beyond death-related loss
- Advocate for breaking cultural taboos around discussing grief
- Developer of practical, accessible grief education resources
- Champion of normalising grief as a natural part of life
Ready to help clients develop healthy relationships with their grief while challenging cultural expectations about "moving on"? Discover how Tiffani Dilworth's contemporary grief methods can transform your understanding of loss and bereavement while giving you the tools to support clients in living authentically alongside their grief experiences.
Feedback & Reviews
This course includes:
- Lessons 4
- Topics 0
- Duration 6 hours
- Quizzes 1
- Language English