Grief, Trauma and Attachment: An Integrated Approach to Perinatal Loss

Perinatal Training Centre has developed an Integrated Perinatal Bereavement Therapy training that is comprehensive, trauma-responsive, attachment-based, and developmentally-inclusive.   

Firmly embedded in the specialist field of perinatal and infant mental health, our training program uniquely knits together four dominant paradigms of practice:

• Grief theory and therapy
• Trauma and traumatic bereavement
• Attachment theory and therapy
• Developmental psychology

We pull from theory, research, and clinical wisdom to leverage theoretically sound, evidence-based and clinically-rich formulations that match the real-life complexity of the clients you support.

Our training program includes 20-hrs of Continuing Professional Development.
‘Live’ online immersive workshop meetings are complimented by pre-recorded lectures.

Perinatal loss is like no other form of loss.  Birth and death join in a way that does not fit our understanding of natural order.

The field of perinatal loss is a vast landscape covering preconception and assisted conception issues, early and late miscarriage, termination including termination for medical reasons (TFMR), prematurity, stillbirth and neonatal death.

Perinatal loss is more than the loss of a baby. A baby is not only gestated in utero but is also gestated in mind: when a baby dies, so too do the hopes and dreams attached to that baby.  In addition, due to the under-acknowledged nature of perinatal loss societally, the grief experience becomes disenfranchised. Subsequently, feelings of shame, guilt and isolation arise.

Pregnancy or infant loss is enormously impactful to parents, leaving them on shaky, uncertain ground. World assumptions have been shattered. Perinatal loss challenges a woman’s fertile self-image, leaving her to question her capacity to create, gestate and deliver something alive and good.

“A baby is not only gestated in utero, but is also gestated in mind…when a baby dies, so too do the hopes and dreams attached to that baby.”

Working with families bereaved from pregnancy and infant death can be harrowing.  The emotionally-charged nature of perinatal loss lands the clinician squarely in the territory of unbearable, intolerable and unspeakable aspects of human experience.  The clinician is required to join with their patient/client to bear the unbearable, tolerate the intolerable and find words for the unspeakable experiences that occur when a pregnancy ends and a baby dies.

Our two-fold program

1.    Immersive workshop meetings – live and online

8 x 2-hr weekly meetings

Live workshop meetings are facilitated by two or more of the Training Team, where the emphasis is on therapeutic frames, formulation and intervention at an advanced level.

Content includes:

• Perinatal Loss as universal and unique
• Perinatal Loss as disenfranchised
• Models of Grief
• Trauma and traumatic bereavement
• Relational Frames of Practice: Adult Attachment Applied to Perinatal Loss
• Developmental Frames of Practice: Applying the Motherhood and Fatherhood Mindsets
• Mentalization: capacities, self-regulation and meaning making
• Pregnancy after loss
• Parenting after loss
• Applying the Nested Model for Integrated Perinatal Intervention
• Attachment-informed, trauma-responsive perinatal grief therapy approach
• Three original in-depth Case Studies applying our Integrated Perinatal Bereavement Model
• Integration and Reformulation of own case
• Clinician self-care and supervision
• Core capacities of the attachment-informed, trauma-responsive perinatal grief therapist
• Bringing it all together – Reflections and questions

The weekly frequency of live meetings allows for a regular digestion of content and process, while providing opportunity for the application of material in your therapy work between meetings.

Live training and participation is key to learning. Reflecting together on this difficult and stirring material allows for strengthening of the ‘reflective muscles’ necessary for the therapeutic work in perinatal bereavement. Pre-recorded, or on-demand training, while useful for access to information, cannot replicate this necessary experiential learning required for therapists.

2.    Video lectures – view between weekly meetings

Approx. 4-hrs total

Pre-recorded lectures compliment the live meetings and orient participants to concepts that are then explored and expanded as a group in the workshops.

Content includes:

• Orientation to the field of grief and perinatal loss
• Models of Grief
• Relational Frames of Practice: Adult Attachment Styles
• Developmental Frames of Practice: Motherhood and Fatherhood Mindsets
• Developmental Frames of Practice: Gestating the Baby in Mind
• Nested Model for Integrated Perinatal Intervention

Participants are invited to actively reflect on the material as it is relevant to the families and communities they serve, to personalise the information and optimise the training experience.

“Working with families bereaved from pregnancy and infant loss is harrowing – it requires bearing the unbearable alongside them. Our training program positions you to hold the complexities of difficult experiences and create a containing psychological nest for your patients to experience and make sense of their grief.”   ~ Dr Bronwyn Leigh

• Identify key features and types of perinatal loss;
• Differentiate between lived experience of perinatal loss and loss at other times in the lifespan;
• Outline and apply multiple grief models relevant to perinatal loss;
• Identify features of traumatic loss and apply a trauma-responsive approach;
• Locate perinatal loss within a developmental frame, highlighting normative psychological transitions through pregnancy and postpartum and how these processes may be affected or interrupted by perinatal loss;
• Assess and formulate presenting issues from an adult attachment frame, integrating psychodynamic, attachment theory principles and mindful self-compassion;
• Integrate the Developmental and Relational Frames
• Define mentalization and understand its links to self-regulation and meaning-making;
• Examine effective psychotherapeutic interventions to support parents through pregnancy after perinatal loss;
• Examine effective psychotherapeutic interventions to support parenting a rainbow baby;
• Learn the Nested Model for Integrated Perinatal Intervention and its application to perinatal loss;
• Consider the core capacities of the attachment-informed, trauma-responsive perinatal grief therapist;
• Consider parallel processes in this therapeutic work.

• 20-hrs of Professional Development training with our dedicated and experienced Training Team of perinatal psychologists, comprising:
  • Live, online workshop meetings totalling 16-hrs
  • Video lectures totalling 4-hrs
• Detailed power point slides in pdf form provided for each session, which becomes a post-training professional resource
• Helpful handouts and articles 
• Recommendations for books, websites and further training opportunities
• Certificate of Attendance
• Perinatal Training Centre Certificate of Completion electronic logo as part of our identity program
• Option to continue your professional development upon course completion via access to individual or group supervision or consultancy with a Perinatal Training Centre supervisor

Registration Fee: $1685
$1485 for PIMH Intensive alumni

$685 / $485 deposit required at Registration

Balance due at least 4-weeks prior to commencement of training and can be made as a single payment or two instalment payments.

Cost includes GST and all participant inclusions

Cancellation Policy
Cancellations: Full amount less $100 admin fee will be provided for cancellations received in writing up to two weeks prior to event. No refund after this time but registration is transferrable to another person to attend the same workshop.

Perinatal Training Centre is a trusted training provider in the field of perinatal and infant mental health (PIMH). We have held contracts for the provision of PIMH training with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Victoria, the Northern Territory Government and the Government of South Australia. Independently, we have offered training nationally in PIMH since 2012.

Our original ‘Bearing the Unbearable’ program was the training program of choice for the NHS in the UK as they developed their National Bereavement Care Pathway. Our training was undertaken in 2022 by dozens of UK health professionals, supporting their delivery of bereavement care to communities across the UK.

'Grief, Trauma and Attachment: An Integrated Approach to Perinatal Loss' was developed by Dr Bronwyn Leigh, Carla Anderson and Dr Charise Deveney, and is an expanded version of our original perinatal loss training, ‘Bearing the Unbearable’, which was developed by Dr Bronwyn Leigh, Carla Anderson, Dr Charise Deveney and Julie King.

Dr Bronwyn Leigh is a Clinical Psychologist, experienced trainer and Director of the Perinatal Training Centre and the Centre for Perinatal Psychology. Bronwyn is deeply interested in the psychological aspects of becoming a parent, the emotional development of infants, and parent-infant relationships. Her interest in perinatal loss is long-standing and preceded her qualification as a psychologist, volunteering as a telephone grief counsellor to parents bereaved from pregnancy loss or neonatal death. She later held an honorary position as the national trainer in perinatal loss counselling for the Bonnie Babes Foundation, travelling Australia to train others in perinatal loss counselling. She has provided media interviews discussing perinatal loss and grief and has facilitated various workshops in the perinatal field nationally.

Carla Anderson is a Clinical Psychologist working in her private practice Perinatal, Child and Family Psychology for the past thirteen years, with a special interest working with families within the perinatal period, particularly perinatal loss. Carla’s passion began prior to this with the Bonnie Babes Foundation as a volunteer telephone grief counsellor for families who had experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death. She then held an honorary position as a national trainer in perinatal loss counselling. Carla then went on to volunteer as a telephone grief counsellor for Angel Babies. Carla has also been involved in a number of national projects and training programs within the perinatal field, and recently published a journal article on Pregnancy-related fears.

Dr Charise Deveney is a Clinical Psychologist. Charise founded Let’s Talk Psychology Practice in Sydney in 2008 and since that time has worked with a strong perinatal and infant mental health focus. In 2016 Charise completed specialist perinatal and infant mental health training with the NSW Institute of Psychiatry. For the past 10-years Charise has been facilitating a private group program that supports women with the transition into motherhood. Psychodynamic, attachment, and relational-based frameworks guide Charise’s work with perinatal women and infants.