Grief isn't a sequential process. Most counselors were trained to treat it like one.
Your caseload is full of loss: a death, a divorce, a diagnosis, a miscarriage, a career ending. But stage-based models leave you waiting for clients to "move through" something that doesn't move in a line. This course replaces the stage myth with the Transcending Model of Grief and Loss (TMGL): a non-linear, developmentally grounded framework for working with any client experiencing any loss, death and non-death alike. Built for generalist counselors, not grief specialists.
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Four Spaces
A non-linear map of the grief experience: Uncharted Territory, Initial Reaction, Lost/Adrift, and Transcending. No stages, no order, rather it outlines a way to locate where a client actually is and how they are navigating their unique loss.Â
The Loss Template
A concrete assessment tool you can use in your next session. Four elements — Context, Grief Expectations, Identity, and Process — that structure how you understand a client's specific loss instead of applying one script to everyone.
Applied, Not Theoretical
Learn specific interventions to apply in session and includes the Loss Template Worksheet and the Space Space-Responsive Strategies.Â
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Why clinicians need this
Grief walks into your office whether or not "grief" is on your specialty list. Yet most counselor training frames it as a stage sequence tied to death, which leaves you underequipped when the loss is non-death, when a client stalls, or when standard models make clients feel they're grieving "wrong." TMGL was built for exactly this gap: a framework any clinician can use across their whole caseload, drawn from the textbook Reconceptualizing Grief: Developmental Considerations for Counseling Clients Experiencing Loss (Cognella).
Who are the instructors
Created and taught by the model's co-creators, Dr. Sonya Lorelle (PhD, LCPC, NCC, RPT-S) and Dr. Katie Atkins (PhD, LPC, ACS, NCC); counselor educators with a combined 25+ years of teaching experience and both recipients of national teaching awards from the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES).
They are the authors of the grief and loss textbook that introduces the Transcending Model of Grief and Loss (Cognella, 2024) and the companion reflective workbook Griefly Speaking. Between them have produced 30+ peer-reviewed publications and delivered 85+ professional presentations at international, national, and state conferences on grief, loss, and counselor preparation. This course distills that scholarship into a practical framework you can use in session.
Ready to Work with Grief Differently?
Stop limiting grief to a narrow stage. Start meeting clients where they actually are.
Enroll in Reconceptualizing Grief: Developmental Considerations for Counselors and walk away with a framework and tools you can use in your next sessionÂ
- Price: $99 (introductory special, normally $150)
- Credit hours: 3 hours
- Format: home study / self-paced
- What's included: video, handouts, certificate
 Blooming Life Institute, LLC has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 8147. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Blooming Life Institute, LLC is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
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