Grief After Suicide: Reconstructing the Continuing Bond
Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD & Carolyn Ng, PsyD
(Full-day workshop)
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Wednesday, October 29, 2025
8:30 am - 4:30 pm Creighton University 3100 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85012 THIS PROGRAM REQUIRES A SEPARATE REGISTRATION FROM THE HOPE CONFERENCE This program has been approved for 6 hours of CEUs Registration includes breakfast & lunch Early Registration until 9/30/25: $125 Late Registration starting 10/1/25: $150 This program is only in-person. There is no virtual attendance option. Sponsorships are available Sponsorship Fees:
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About the program:
Whether they are striving to restore a sense of secure attachment to a loved one lost to suicide or to resolve lingering relational issues with the deceased, mourners frequently need to reengage those they have lost rather than relinquish the bond and “move on.” We will begin by reviewing both clinical videos of actual clients and recent research that together document the long-term efforts of suicide loss survivors to rescue their loved one’s humanity from the stigma of their dying by their own hand. We then will explore and practice several creative visual, narrative, and relational methods for renewing the bond with the deceased while working through unresolved issues of guilt, anger and abandonment triggered by the death and the sometimes-conflicted life that preceded it. Participants will leave with tools for assessing factors that complicate grieving as well as for promoting a more coherent and consoling bond with the deceased, appreciating the role of the loved one in their construction of their own identities, and revising frozen dialogues with the deceased that interfere with post-loss adaptation. Sponsored by:
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Presenters
Robert A. Neimeyer, PhDDr. Neimeyer, is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, maintains an active consulting practice, and directs the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition, which provides global online training in grief therapy. Neimeyer has published 37 books, including Living Beyond Loss: Questions and Answers about Grief and Bereavement and New Techniques of Grief Therapy, and serves as Editor of Death Studies. The author of over 600 articles and book chapters, he has been recognized in the Stanford University/Elsevier list of Top 2% Scientists in the world, with 58,947 citations to his work according to Google Scholar. Neimeyer is currently working to advance a more adequate theory of grieving as a meaning-making process. In recognition of his contributions, he has been made a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and given Lifetime
Achievement Awards by both the Association for Death Education and Counseling and the International Network on Personal Meaning. |
Carolyn Ng, PsyD, MMSAC, RegCLRDr. Ng maintains a private practice, Anchorage for
Loss and Transition, for training, supervision and therapy in Singapore, while also serving as Associate Director of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition.Previously she was a Principal Counsellor with the Children’s Cancer Foundation in Singapore, specializing in cancer-related palliative care and bereavement counseling. She is a registered counselor, master clinical member and approved supervisor with the Singapore Association for Counseling (SAC). 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 Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA), USA, and 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. |