Holding Space and Helping Hearts: CBC Advanced Skills Course

COURSE OBJECTIVES   |   COURSE DETAILS   |   TESTIMONIALS   |   FAQS    |   UPCOMING EVENTS   |    REGISTRATION   |   RESOURCES

Holding Space and Helping Hearts: CBC Advanced Skills Course

Enhance your expertise in traumatic grief care with the CBC Advanced Skills Course, led by Dr. Joanne Cacciatore. This intensive program, held in Sedona, Arizona, offers 16 CE credits and delves into therapeutic alliance, contemplative grief work, and innovative care methods. Limited space for an intimate learning experience.

An advanced program, taught by Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, for medical or mental health providers, CBC certified.

Providers are seeking more in-depth training on practice specific skills and creative, culturally sensitive care to those who are traumatically bereaved. This course will cover four specific areas:

  1. Relationship and safety in the therapeutic alliance
  2. Contemplative approaches for in-depth work with traumatic grief
  3. Ritual and metaphor
  4. A rudimentary overview of animal and nature-based methods

Holding Space and Helping Hearts: CBC Advanced Skills Course

Enhance your expertise in traumatic grief care with the CBC Advanced Skills Course, led by Dr. Joanne Cacciatore. This intensive program, held in Sedona, Arizona, offers 16 CE credits and delves into therapeutic alliance, contemplative grief work, and innovative care methods. Limited space for an intimate learning experience.

An advanced program, taught by Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, for medical or mental health providers, CBC certified.

Providers are seeking more in-depth training on practice specific skills and creative, culturally sensitive care to those who are traumatically bereaved. This course will cover four specific areas:

  1. Relationship and safety in the therapeutic alliance
  2. Contemplative approaches for in-depth work with traumatic grief
  3. Ritual and metaphor
  4. A rudimentary overview of animal and nature-based methods

Course Objectives

Advanced Compassionate Bereavement Care Certification Focuses on these Principles

  1. Attendees will understand the steps of safety in the therapeutic alliance and define and enact the concept of space holding. They will be better prepared to work with clients experiencing traumatic grief in both client/family care and group work, engaging dialectical thinking and evaluation of outcome measures. Attendees will learn the structure of the ATTEND model’s egalitarian practice, learning how to build trust in the therapeutic alliance across varying religious, ethnic, and SES groups that present for care.
  2. Attendees will be able to describe and understand the ways in which the intersection of gender, culture, childhood adversity and trauma, and grief and loss affect individuals, families, and communities, even intergenerationally. They will describe risk and limitations to TAU and risk and limitations to more humanistic approaches, as well as the benefits of each. Students will learn and express knowledge of both culture and experiential differences in presenting clients and how those may affect preferences for care as well as acute and long-term outcomes. They will demonstrate an understanding of the import of relationships with self-other-animals-nature.
  3. Attendees will learn and practice meditative guidance and strategies for calming clients when aroused. They will learn to apply mindfulness-based theoretical models in working with highly vulnerable groups, such as ethnic and religious minorities and traumatized populations.
  4. Attendees will be able to define ritual and metaphor, and will have opportunities to plan, role play, and lead a ritual with others that is culturally sensitive and appropriate for traumatically bereaved clients.
  5. Through role play and practice, attendees will plan a human geographically based supportive counseling day, that includes agricultural activities, engagement with and care of animals in green spaces, creativity and ecotherapies (general green care), integrating the concept of ahimsa. Based on a review the literature, they will think critically about empirical evidence and discuss. They are expected to demonstrate evidence-based practice that is reflexive and adaptable to the nuances of personal, familial, contextual, and cultural differences during in-course role plays.
  6. Attendees will be able to describe and understand the context and policies that shape the provision of care to vulnerable groups such as barriers to care and culturally insensitive interventions. Using the ATTEND model for traumatic grief care, attendees will learn and practice attunement and mindfulness in the therapeutic relationship, trust building, egalitarianism, nuance and cultural awareness and sensitivity, and strategies for compassionate psychoeducation.
  7. Attendees will learn how to cultivate their own plan of mindfulness practice to reduce the risks of vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue for themselves and to improve outcomes for clients.

Course Details

Space is limited due to the intimacy of this course.

16 continuing education credits provided. This training is being held near Sedona, Arizona, one of the most beautiful and sought after vacation cities in the world. Come a day or two early and enjoy the majesty of Sedona! Alliant International University is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Alliant maintains responsibility for the program and its content. Alliant is approved by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences to provide continuing education for MFTs and LCSWs (provider # PCE234). Please allow approximately 8-10 weeks for CEU’s to be processed following the course.

Registration is possible with or without CEUS.
Registration with CEUS: $620
Registration without CEUS: 495

During the course of this program, simple ‘continental’ vegan breakfast is available, vegan lunches will be provided. Dinner is on your own.

October 29-30, 2026 (8:00AM – 5:00PM)

TESTIMONIALS

Robert D. Stolorow, PhD

“(This) course on the understanding of and therapeutic approach to traumatic grief is sorely needed in the context of the pathologizing, get-over-it-and move-on attitude that pervades our culture… It will provide a thorough, systematic, and eminently practical exploration of the phenomenology of and evidence-based approaches to grief trauma that will be invaluable to practicing clinicians at all levels.”
Author, Trauma and Human Existence Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine

Karla Helbert, LPC

“It’s hard to articulate how this training impacted me. Having already done this work for a while, I recognize I have only barely scratched the surface of how deep is the well. I’ve learned so much about turning toward my own pain, turning toward someone else’s pain and seeing how deep we can truly go–humans joining together in pain, in life, in love, in beauty. I’ve learned so much about being with someone else in the places no one else wants to see.”
Richmond, Virginia

Shannon Norberg

“I want to thank you for the past four days…Thank you for putting this training together, for bringing such a group of precious hearts together, for creating and holding the space for such immense opening and transformation to occur. (The) teaching is outstanding. Dr Joanne Cacciatore is a captivating speaker and clearly has so much inner, outer, all around, intuitive and research based knowledge – the transmission of everything was just so direct and heartfelt. I enjoyed listening to stories and the miracle of how she somehow has every relevant paper filed away in her mind, accessible at a moment’s notice, it was truly awe-inspiring to grasp just how much she knows and contributes and completely lives out this work. I have never experienced instruction that was so balanced between the academic world and the world of the heart, both were woven together so that there was really no division – each complimented and reinforced and built upon the other and made learning – and absorbing – effortless… I could go on and on and on.. I thought I was broken open before, walking around with a very bare heart and little skin. I now feel as though my heart and nervous system are the ones rolling ahead of me as I go, picking up every nuance and every story of every person I pass, forget skin, forget barriers, and yet I am somehow able to hold it all. I can’t wait to put the tools into practice, I can’t wait to re-read my notes and all the slides and all of the incredible resources you provided. I can’t wait for bibliotherapy. I can’t wait to sit. Thank you for an incredible experience, life altering without a doubt, world changing.”
Vancouver B.C., Canada Registered Midwife

Paul Wyant Kahn, LCSW, DCSW

“(This) is a rare program in our field…implemented for nearly fifteen years and has helped hundreds of families and individuals through traumatic grief. The model has been subjected to a number of experiments and in published papers shown empirically to have dramatic healing validity and reliability. I have personally met and interviewed those (treated with) this program, (including) men and women who have lost children suddenly and through disease, accidents and violence. I was astonished at their ability to discuss with both deep emotion and equanimity their loss, their process through grief, and their gradual reconnection with the flow of their lives. I served as a lead clinician treating a Cambodian population who survived Pot Pol and were moved from refugee camps in Thailand to the South Bronx. I also worked in the South Bronx when a large portion was burned down in riots and street violence was rampant during the addiction madness of the “crack” epidemic. I know intimately how difficult it is to help traumatized people. As a seasoned clinician, I want (this training) brought forward as a “best practice” and to see treatment professionals educated and using it as a primary intervention. I can share with you my unequivocal recommendation of the Compassionate Bereavement Care Certification.”
Certified Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist The Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis of New Jersey

Lynn Farrales MD MSc CCFP

“I found this course to be of exceptional value to enhance my practice as a family physician who provides care for those who have experienced traumatic grief. The course provides students with the basics of understanding trauma. But, what sets the Compassionate Bereavement Care Certification apart from other courses is that it invites practitioners to make a shift toward being more human in practice through a rich curriculum that includes lectures, actual/simulated patient encounters, role play and selected video showings. I have found more satisfaction in my work through making this shift in practice.”
University of British Columbia, Department of Family Practice

Advanced Compassionate Bereavement Care Certification® FAQs

When should I arrive?

We will begin at 8am on the first day. Please arrive by evening time the day before the program begins. Remember that Sedona is easily one of the world’s most beautiful and popular travel destinations. If you can schedule your extended vacation around the certification program, we highly recommend it. Things to see and do in Sedona include hiking, mountain biking, Palatki and Honanki ruins, jeep tours, helicopter tours, cave exploring, camping, Slide Rock, hiking in creeks and mountains, and so much more!

Where should I arrive?

Our Compassionate Bereavement Care training program will take place for the first time in our newly built, state-of-the-art meeting room at the MISS Foundation’s Selah House near Sedona, Arizona. Address will be provided to attendees. Attendees may find nearby hotel accommodations in areas close to Selah House (zip code 86325) in Old town Cottonwood, the Village of Oak Creek, and Sedona.

How much is it and what is included in the Compassionate Bereavement Care Certification® program fee?

The cost is $995.00 for the four-day program. You will pay your own hotel fees and any other costs of travel. You may become certified with or without continuing education credits. There is an additional $200 fee for 30 CE hours and the certificate for those. Registration and CEU fees are the same whether you are taking the course in person or through video conferencing.

What about phones and electronic devices?

Please turn off all electronic devices and phones during the program out of respect for fellow attendees. We ask that you do not use computers during the session, and audio/visual recording is not permitted.

Do I have to apply to be accepted into the program?

Yes, application is mandatory for certified providers.

What if I am not accepted into the certification program?

This training may be unsuitable for you at this time. You may reapply no sooner than 24 months from the first application date.

Can I attend only a day?

Because of the nature of this event, please plan to attend the entire program.

Are scholarships available?

This training raises funds for the MISS Foundation, an international nonprofit organization that aids parents enduring the death (or impending death) of a child. Scholarships are not available. Consider that your fee for the program will help many families in crisis.

What time does the training start and end?

Registration commences at 7:30 am on the first morning. Each day will commence at 8am, both days will last until 5pm with a 60-minute lunch break. Lunch on-site is provided complimentary. See our Course Schedule for more detailed information.

What is the nearest airport?

The nearest airport is Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport which is approximately 2 hours away. Shuttle service is limited due to Covid so we recommend renting a car. Please refer to our Travel Info page for more details.

What is the weather like?

The meeting location is near breathtaking Sedona, Arizona and is located in the high desert at 4,500-feet altitude. Typical high desert weather in summer is warm in the day cooling off at night.

Do I need to have a graduate degree?

In most all cases, yes. This is a post-graduate certification program. Exceptions are for nursing, hospice, and on a case-by-case basis. If you do not have a graduate degree, please email your vita to info@missfoundation.org and reference your application for the certification program.

How are the accommodations?

The meeting space is located at the MISS Foundation’s Selah House at the Carefarm near Sedona. The location is beautiful.

What should I bring?

The climate is changeable, so bring a variety of loose, comfortable, casual, layered clothing. Bring outdoor walking shoes as well as slip-on shoes. Bring hat and sunscreen in the spring/summer and/or rain gear in the fall/winter for outdoor walking. Please bring tissues, a few pens or pencils, notebook or journal, and photos of your loved one if you are also bereaved.

Who should attend?

Clinicians with a graduate degree who are interested in this burgeoning field including nurses, physicians, social workers, sociologists, mortuary scientists, first responders, counselors, therapists, psychiatrists, graduate students, and others working with those who are traumatically bereaved. If you do not have a graduate degree, you will need to send a vita to info@missfoundation.org for consideration.

Can I pay by credit card?

Yes you can either through online registration or when sending in the registration forms.

What do I do if I need to cancel?***

Send an email as soon as you know you’ll have to cancel. There is a non-refundable cancellation fee of $100 by September 29, 2026. There are no refunds for cancellations after September 29, 2026. Please save your email and if you do not receive a cancellation notice back within 48 hours, please call us with your intent to cancel at 602-279-MISS (6477).

*The MISS Foundation does not provide a refund for any reason after the stated cancellation date nor do we offer a refund for cancellation or withdrawal once a program has begun.

How do I maintain my certification?

In order to remain provider certified, we ask that you focus a minimum of 6 continuing education hours every two years on grief, death, or trauma. We will offer opportunities to our providers at deeply discounted prices, both online and in person.

Can the Compassionate Bereavement Care Certification® program be brought to us?

Yes, however, attendees at your hospital, agency, counseling center, hospice facility, or other organization may still need to complete the application process depending on desired trainings. Please contact us if you are interested in bringing Dr. Joanne Cacciatore or this training to your location.

Our Upcoming Compassionate Bereavement Care® Events

Travel Info

Our Compassionate Bereavement Care training program will take place in our newly built, state-of-the-art meeting room at the MISS Foundation’s Selah House near Sedona, Arizona. Address will be provided to attendees. Attendees may find nearby hotel accommodations in areas close to Selah House (zip code 86325) in Old town Cottonwood, the Village of Oak Creek, and Sedona.

Events

Advanced CBC Registration

You are required to have completed our Compassionate Bereavement course in order to apply for Advanced CBC. Please register below.

Register Now

Resources

CBC providers have access to dozens of pertinent articles, videos and recordings as part of our training and certification program. Click the button below to visit our password protected section of articles.

Click Here