Pet Loss Grief Support Professional Training

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Program Information

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

Speaker

Nancy Gordon, LCSW, CLC Related seminars and products

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Nancy M. Gordon, LCSW, CLC, is a licensed clinical social worker and certified life coach with over four decades of experience in grief counseling. She specializes in the often-overlooked area of pet loss and anticipatory grief, providing trauma-informed care that acknowledges the profound bonds between humans and their animal companions. Nancy’s unique approach combines professional expertise with person experience. After the loss of her two service dogs, Toaster and Pink, within nine months of each other, she developed the 7 Powerful Practices to Manage Your Mind and Heal Your Heart, a methodology that transforms grief into a profound journey of hope, healing and personal growth.

Nancy’s pioneering work with service dogs for chronic pain relief has been featured on Animal Planet and her commitment to transforming the perception and treatment of pet loss grief has made her a sought-after speaker and educator in both mental health and veterinary circles. She contributed chapters to two collaborative books and has been featured on Dr. Karen Becker’s Pet Grief Awareness as the pet grief expert in anticipatory pet loss and grief. She is the author of the forthcoming book I Miss You Already: Preparing for the Unbearable Loss of Your Pet.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Nancy Gordon maintains a private practice and receives royalties as a published author. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Nancy Gordon is a member of the International Association for Animal Hospice and Palliative Care.

 

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Program Information

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Objectives

1. Distinguish between pet loss grief and human loss grief, including cultural perceptions and societal recognition.
2. Utilize psychoeducation to teach clients to better understand the nature of disenfranchised grief so they can grieve the loss of a pet without fear of judgement.
3. Evaluate how the complex decisions involved in saying goodbye to a pet, including euthanasia can lead to guilt and self-blame.
4. Distinguish between DSM-5-TR Prolonged Grief Disorder and other mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and PTSD, and apply these distinctions to pet loss grief.
5. Identify anticipatory grief signs and how these signs transition into post-loss grief.
6. Define the theory of continuing bonds and its practical application in helping clients process pet loss grief, including post-loss resilience and transformation.
7. Use grief assessment tools, including intake forms, grief-reaction intensity scales, and quality of life assessment for clients.
8. Use strategies and interventions tailored to specific populations such a seniors, disabled pet owners, and those with compounded losses.
9. Utilize the principles of trauma-informed care in supporting clients with pet loss.
10. Define common grief experiences in pet loss, providing tools and worksheets for each experience to assist clients.
11. Identify the most common internal struggles experienced during anticipatory grief and the tools necessary to early intervention and prevention.
12. Formulate support for clients with unresolved guilt or shame stemming from decisions  around euthanasia, pet surrender, or caregiver limitations.
13. Analyze risks, research and limitations in pet loss grief work.

Outline

DAY 1

Foundations of Grief and Pet Loss Grief

• Grief types and misconceptions
• DSM-5-TR™ Prolonged Grief and ICD-11 criteria
• Comparing to other DSM-5 diagnoses like anxiety, depression, PTSD
• Influences on the grief journey

The Human-Animal Bond: Attachment, Identity, and Role Loss

• The role of human-pet attachment bonds
• Unhealthy vs. healthy bonds
• Secondary losses: identity, role, routine
• Populations most at risk

Get Started as a Pet Loss Grief Provider: Key Concepts, Skills, and Working with Disenfranchised Grief

• Distinctions between pet and human loss
• Pet grief as disenfranchised grief: making a difference in the world’s perception
• Elevate pet loss with cultural norms
• The 6 skills pet loss providers need

Trauma-Informed Grief Work: Principles and Applied Strategies

• The six principles of trauma-informed care
• Evaluate client risks and protective resources
• Strategies to avoid re-traumatization
• Prevent therapist secondary trauma and compassion fatigue
• Navigate euthanasia as potential trauma before and after loss

When Pet Grief is Compounded by Other Losses

• The concept of layered losses
• Impacts of compounded grief
• Strategies to manage multiple loss overwhelm
• Tools for managing overlapping grief reactions

Working with Specific Pet Loss Populations

• Men’s pet loss grief: norms, stigma, data
• Single and childless owners
• Disabled owners with service animals
• Other populations: children, divorcing pet owners, seniors

Assessment Tools, Intake Forms, Worksheets, and More

• Assessments, intake forms, QOL form
• Key intake components (worksheet)
• Targeted grief psychoeducation (worksheet)
• Evaluate support systems and resources (worksheet)
• Grief-reaction intensity scales
• Mindset/visualization and other techniques
• Identify unhealed past loss and grief … and incorporate into treatment plan
• Communication dos and don’ts

DAY 2

Anticipatory Grief: When Clients Know a Pet is Near the End of Life

• Evaluate and educate clients
• Contrast anticipatory grief vs. post-loss grief
• Identify and normalize anticipatory grief signs
• How to understand and use anticipatory grief as post-loss precursor

Shame, Guilt, Regret, and More: Common Experiences, Assessment, and Intervention Strategies

• Overview of the 7 anticipatory grief experiences vs. stages of grief
• Tools and worksheets for each experience
• The most common presenting problems: shame, guilt, and regret
• Assess for signs and symptoms in clients
• Interventions for short-term, long-term, and sudden loss contexts
• Trauma-informed grief work with anticipatory loss
• Research, risks and treatment limitations

Clinical Considerations and Ethical Dilemmas

• Self-disclosure
• Assist in treatment vs. euthanasia decisions
• How to balance hope with impending loss preparation
• Address distress in sudden decline or emergency euthanasia
• Prevention of suicidal risk post loss

Tools for Hope, Resilience, and Transformation

• Understand the 3 dimensions of grief
• The power of continuing bonds and how to create them
• Cultivate resilience in life after loss
• Tools for transformative experiences

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Registered Psychotherapists
• Physicians
• Chaplains/Clergy
• Thanatologists
• Other helping professionals