What Therapists Mourn: An Interactive Workshop

Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak
Whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.

— Macbeth

Date: Saturday, February 27th, 2027 9AM-2PM

Credits: 4 CE 
Speaker: Deborah Cabannis, MD

Meeting is both on Zoom & in-person at: 
The Center for Integrative Counseling & Psychology
4305 MacArthur Ave.
Dallas, TX 75209

In this interactive workshop, we will explore our general feelings about mourning, with a focus on the many things we mourn as therapists. We will review a model for thinking about mourning and then speak to one another about how and what we mourn during our clinical work. In our clinical practice, we continuously need to adjust to a reality that is not necessary what we hoped for. This is the work of mourning that we, as therapists, can learn to practice every day.

GAP IN KNOWLEDGE:

As therapists, we are generally taught about mourning from the perspective of the people with whom we work. This is often in the setting of loss of a loved one. Depending on our training, we may have studied this from multiple perspectives, including scientific, psychological, psychoanalytic, religious, and philosophical. Much more rarely, however, do we talk about the things that we, as therapists, mourn in the everyday work of clinical practice.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Afterparticipating in this interactive workshop, participants will

1.        Be able to articulate many of the things that they, as therapists, mourn in clinical practice;

2.        Be able to outline a model for thinking about the process of mourning

3.        Feel more comfortable talking and thinking about their own process of mourning in clinical practice, and begin to think about developing a regular practice of mourning to enhance their clinical work.

PRESENTER BIOGRAPHY:

Deborah L. Cabaniss, M.D. is Professor Emerita of Clinical Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Until June of 2025, she was Associate Director of Residency Training in the Columbia Department of Psychiatry. She received her BA from Yale,  her MD from Columbia, and completed her psychoanalytic training at Columbia.  She has won numerous teaching awards and has over 60 publications related to psychotherapy education. In addition to her work in the US, Dr. Cabaniss has lectured and taught in Sweden, Norway, Japan, Korea and Canada, and her books, “Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Clinical Manual,” “Psychodynamic Formulation: An Expanded Approach,” and “Different Patients; Different Therapies” are used widely across the US and abroad. She is in private practice in Manhattan.

REFERENCES:

1.        Parens, H (2001). We All Mourn: C’est La Condition Humane. In Akhtar, S (ed). Three Faces of Mouning, Jason Aronson, North Bergen NJ.

2.        O’Connor, MF (2023). The Grieving Brain. Harper Collins, NY.

3.        Alberini CM, Ledoux JE. Memory reconsolidation. Curr Biol. 2013 Sep 9;23(17):R746-50. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.06.046. PMID: 24028957.