EMDR for Grief: When the Target Is a Person, Not a Memory

The session you already know

Mara's coin

FFaceThe hospital doorway where she learned he was gone. It returns every day.
RReverseEveryone praised her for being the strong one. She has never said how alone she was that night.
EEdgeHer daughter's graduation is in May. He will not be in the seat beside her.
TTotem"If I stop going over what I should have done, it means I didn't love him enough."

Her partner died eleven months ago. She came for the doorway: the moment at the hospital she sees every time she closes her eyes. You did what you were trained to do. You set up the target, the SUD came down, the image softened. Good work, by any measure the protocol gives you.

And she is not better. The reviewing continues, every night, every decision she should have made differently. Her family tells her she is doing so well. The graduation is coming. When you gently wonder aloud whether the reviewing could ease, she goes quiet and says, "If I stop, it means I didn't love him enough."

The protocol gave you a target. It did not tell you that the target was the smallest part of the loss, or that the thing holding her distress in place might be love.

If you have had a grief case where the SUD on the scene came down and nothing else did, you have been in this room.

Grief is objectified by the face of the coin.

What happened is what people think you are dealing with. It is the loss event, the funeral, the first time they knew. It is also the part of grief our culture has the most room for. The deeper you go, into what did not happen and what never will, the less room there is, with family, with friends, and sometimes in therapy, to say it out loud.

And underneath the coin is the totem: the grief event, by the sheer force of its pain, obscures the wound it exploited. What was embedded in that person? Security. Being known. A future self. A sense that reality held together because they were in it. That is often where the residual pain of a loss is actually coming from, and it is not a memory you can reprocess. Love and the whole person are not treatment targets. The work is finding the target inside the loss without taking the person with it.

Four hours on finding the target inside the loss.

The coin and the totem

What happened. What didn't. What never will.

A way of mapping a loss that Bridger has taught to clients and to therapists for years. The coin organizes the experiences of the loss. The totem asks what the person carried. Neither is a sequence or a checklist; the categories overlap, and the point is to notice what is actually there, including what you do not yet know.

Face

What happened

The event and its present activation. The image, the moment, the sensation, the reminder that keeps returning. The part of grief everyone assumes is the whole of it.

"I see the doorway."

Reverse

What didn't happen

What was needed or hoped for around the loss and did not come: a goodbye, support, protection, recognition, agency. The deeper side, and the one with the least room to be spoken.

"Nobody asked how I was that night."

Edge

What will never happen

The specific lost future, and the way it returns at every milestone. Distinct from a global prediction: "he will not be at her graduation" is not "nothing will ever matter again."

"He won't be in the seat beside me."

Then the totem: what this person, or this relationship, carried about being known, being needed, safety, competence, continuity, belonging, a possible future self. A totem meaning can be sustaining, painful, mixed, or unknown. A strong bond and a hard grief do not make a pathology. The question worth asking is narrower: has the distress itself become the thing that keeps the connection, so that relief would feel like disloyalty?

Before you register

This is clinical education. Your own grief stays yours.

You bring a de-identified case, or you work with Mara, the composite case on this page. Disclosing your own losses is optional throughout. There is no live reprocessing of anyone's grief, and the reflections you write are private unless you choose to share a line. We teach the model as what it is: a proposed formulation, grounded in the published EMDR grief literature, not a validated protocol.

$95 · 4 NBCC hours · bring a case

What four hours cover

Four questions, taken in order

What is the target when the loss is a person?

Mapping a case onto the coin, then choosing a focus: a death-related image, a missing goodbye, an approaching milestone, relief that feels like disloyalty. For each, what to assess, what to process, and what must stay intact.

What is the grief protecting?

The totem, and how a protective response makes sense in this person's life. Relentless reviewing can hold a sense of responsibility; caretaking can keep connection available. Hypotheses to check with the client, never explanations to hand them. And what happens in you as you witness it.

How do you pace a recent loss?

Time since the death informs the picture and does not decide the next step. Current functioning, supports, ongoing strain, the client's own priorities. Why a resource that used to calm can now intensify grief, and what to do when it does.

How do you know it is moving?

Moving means more flexibility and more room to live with the loss, not fewer tears. Stuck is shorthand for a pattern that needs closer assessment, not a diagnosis. Reevaluating the target and the person's life separately, and when the formulation itself needs revising.

This is not a new protocol. It sits inside the eight phases and inside the published EMDR grief literature, from Solomon and Rando forward, and adds a shared language for formulation and an explicit relational inquiry: when a client expects their grief to exhaust everyone, your urge to make it better can confirm it. You need EMDR Basic Training. You need one grief case you are still thinking about.

When

Wednesday 6 January 2027
12:30pm to 4:30pm Central

Central (Springfield, Zoom host time)	12:30pm to 4:30pm
Eastern	1:30pm to 5:30pm
Mountain	11:30am to 3:30pm
Pacific	10:30am to 2:30pm

One afternoon, with two short breaks. The rhythm throughout is the same: a few minutes writing about your own case, a chance to say what you noticed, then the language that helps organize it. The last twenty-five minutes are live case consultation.

Prerequisite

Completion of an EMDRIA-approved EMDR Basic Training. This is an advanced workshop and assumes fluency with the eight phases.

In person or online

325 South Avenue, Springfield, MO, 25 seats. Or live on Zoom, 50 seats. One room, held together: spoken contributions and chat both count.

4 NBCC clock hours. An application for 4 EMDRIA Credits has been submitted and is pending approval; we will update this page when it comes back. Certificate issued after the live session.

Learning objectives

The six objectives submitted with the EMDRIA Credit application. They are what the certificate will state.

Differentiate the face, reverse, and edge of the coin formulation by classifying case material as what happened, what did not happen, and what will no longer happen as anticipated.
Formulate a client-centered hypothesis linking a loss-related identity or attachment meaning represented by the totem to a protective response, including one alternative explanation.
Select and justify a specific EMDR target or a preparation or support intervention from a grief case formulation while identifying an aspect of mourning or continuing connection to preserve.
Identify at least three assessment factors that inform EMDR pacing after a recent loss, including capacity for engagement, available supports, and ongoing stressors.
Differentiate target-specific distress reduction from changes in grief adaptation using at least three indicators of flexibility or functioning.
Formulate a response to a grief-related therapeutic misattunement that acknowledges the therapist's contribution, checks the client's experience, and supports a collaborative next step.

Bring the loss that didn't move.

One price, two rooms. Choose Springfield or Zoom in the form. Both are live, both earn the same CE, and both leave with the worksheet and the map.

Seats are capped so the case consultation at the end is real: 25 in the room, 50 online. When a room is full it closes. EMDR Basic Training is required.

WorkshopWednesday 6 January · 12:30 to 4:30pm Central

$95

In person · 325 South Avenue, Springfield

25 seats

Live on Zoom

50 seats

4 NBCC hours · worksheet · the mapEMDRIA Credits applied for, pending approval

Included

Everything happens right here on this page: name, email, your room, then payment. Your confirmation, the calendar invitation and, for Zoom, the link follow by email.

What you take home

One sheet per case.

Everything you write on Wednesday is on paper you keep, built so you can use it with the next grief case that walks in.

01 · The worksheet

Case formulation, one page

Fourteen fields in the client's language: the desired change, face, reverse, edge, totem, the protective response and its cost, context, the relational moment, what is still unknown, the next step, what must remain intact, pacing, and the signs you would revise the plan.

02 · The map

The coin and the totem

The three domains and their inquiry questions, with the distinctions that keep them honest: a specific lost future versus a global prediction, an accurate absence versus a distorted belief, a bond versus a dependence on distress.

03 · The table

From presentation to decision

Seven common grief presentations, the focus or action each might call for after assessment, and the column people forget: what to preserve. Including when the right move is practical support rather than a target at all.

04 · Pacing

The recent-loss checklist

What to assess when the loss is weeks old, one practical support action, one preparation question, one sign to slow down, and a closure and between-session plan.

05 · The reading

Where this sits in the literature

Solomon and Rando, Stroebe and Schut, continuing bonds, meaning reconstruction, the cognitive attachment model, and the comparative EMDR grief trials, with a plain statement of what the evidence does and does not yet support.

06 · Us

Your case, worked live

The last twenty-five minutes are de-identified case questions from the room. For each: the client's goal, the active domain, the unknown, a possible totem, the relational moment, and a next question with its rationale.

The coin and totem is a proposed formulation, not a validated treatment. We say so in the room, and the reading list shows you the evidence it sits beside.

From the hosts of Notice That

Bridger Falkenstien

Co-founder, Beyond Healing Institute. Co-developer of Somatic Integration and Processing. Co-author of The Relational Thread. Co-host of the Notice That podcast.

Jen Savage

Beyond Healing Institute. Co-author of The Relational Thread. Co-host of the Notice That podcast.

The coin and the totem came out of Bridger's own grief work with clients and the Beyond Healing drop-in groups, where therapists have been mapping their cases with it for years. This is the first time it is taught as a full afternoon, with Jen bringing the relational thread: what happens between you and a grieving client when the culture around you both is saying move on.

Questions clinicians ask before registering

Do I need EMDR training?

Yes. Completion of an EMDRIA-approved EMDR Basic Training is required. The afternoon assumes you know the eight phases and have run them with real clients.

Is this a new grief protocol?

No. It sits inside standard EMDR and inside the published grief work, from Solomon and Rando's framework to Solomon's 2024 integrative model. What it adds is a shared formulation language and an explicit look at what happens between therapist and client. We will tell you plainly what the evidence supports and what it does not yet.

Will I have to talk about my own grief?

No. This is clinical education. You can bring a de-identified case or use the composite case we provide. Any writing you do about your own responses stays with you; sharing is by choice, one line at a time.

My client's loss is recent. Is this for me?

Yes. One segment is entirely about pacing when the loss is weeks or months old: what to assess beyond the calendar, how to handle resources that no longer calm, and when practical support is the intervention.

Does it cover pregnancy and perinatal loss?

As context, not as the center. The developmental and identity dimensions of perinatal loss, and losses that return at later milestones, inform the pacing segment. A full treatment of perinatal loss is its own afternoon.

Does it count for EMDRIA Credits?

We have submitted this workshop to EMDRIA for 4 EMDRIA Credits and are waiting to hear back. We will say so here, plainly, as soon as it is approved, and registrants will be told either way before the workshop. The 4 NBCC clock hours are not in question.

In person or online, which is better?

Same afternoon, same material, same worksheet. In person at 325 South Avenue has 25 seats and the people in the room. Online has 50 seats and your own desk, and we keep the whole group together rather than splitting into breakouts. Pick the room you will actually show up in.