Workshop Schedule

The conference will start out with a Morning Yoga Session from 7:30am-8:20am. 

Yoga has been proven to improve concentration, connection, focus, sleep, and relaxation. Research has shown yoga decreases major trauma symptoms such as anxiety, angry outbursts, and the impact of exaggerated survival stress responses. This session will give a hands on approach to learning about emotional regulation and its impacts on the body.

1 CE Offered

Workshop Series A  

Friday, June 26th, 2025 9:10am-11:00am

2 CEs Offered

Workshop A1: Mending a Broken Heart & Learning to LIVE Again by Using the 4-F's

Presenter: Deborah Pausig, LMFT

Workshop A2: Unmasking and Mourning: Addressing Personal, Relational, and Collective Grief in Neurodivergent Adults

Presenter: Dr. Nancy Grechko, Psy. D

Late diagnosis of neurodivergence in adulthood—particularly ADHD and autism—often brings profound relief alongside complex layers of grief. Clients may grieve missed accommodations, misunderstood childhood experiences, strained relationships, internalized shame, and systemic misattunement. Beyond individual loss, many experience relational rupture and collective grief tied to gendered, cultural, and diagnostic disparities. This workshop explores the personal, relational, and collective dimensions of grief following late-identified neurodivergence. Participants will examine identity reconstruction, attachment wounds shaped by chronic misattunement, and the nervous system impacts of prolonged masking. Attendees will leave with practical tools for supporting identity integration, relational repair, and collective processing within clinical and group settings. 

Workshop A3: Holding Each Other: Healing Together in Uncertain Times

Presenter: Mary Dobson, LMFT, CEDS & Andrea Ciarlelli, LMFT

This workshop offers a framework for understanding and responding to collective trauma as it shows up in the therapy room. Drawing on systemic, narrative and somatic approaches, participants will explore how polarization, displacement and grief manifest within family systems and leave with practical tools for trauma-informed practice. Equal attention is given to clinical sustainability and the real-life daily challenges of practicing in times of shared crisis. This session is designed to help practitioners name what they are seeing in their cases, expand their clinical toolkit for collective trauma and tend to their own healing because we cannot do this work if we are not simultaneously working on ourselves.

Workshop Series B  

Friday, June 26th, 2025 11:10am-1:00pm

2 CEs Offered

Workshop B1: Navigating the Tsunami of Suicide Grief

Presenter: Ann Irr Dagle, BS in Marketing, Certification in Grief & Death Studies

The suicide death of someone is complex, isolating, and often overwhelming experience. The grief carries a unique kind of weight—questions that feel unanswerable, filled with many “whys”. Survivors refer to their grief as a Tsunami. This interactive workshop will discuss navigating the storm, holding sacred space for survivors of suicide loss.

Workshop B2: When Faith Breaks: The Grief No One Talks About

Presenter: Nicolle Wargo-Boswell, MS, LPC

Religious deconstruction is often viewed as a cognitive shift, but for many clients it is a deeply emotional process rooted in grief. As individuals question or reconstruct their beliefs, they may experience loss of identity, community, certainty, and meaning - often without language or support to process it. This workshop explores the grief embedded in religious deconstruction and reconstruction, particularly in the context of religious trauma and harm. Participants will learn how this process presents in the therapy room and gain trauma-informed, neuro-affirming strategies to support clients in navigating loss, meaning-making, and rebuilding a sense of self.

Workshop B3: Invisible Loss, Visible Impact: Reproductive Grief and the Relationships It Reshapes

Presenter: Catharine McDonald, LPC

Reproductive experiences—including infertility, pregnancy and infant loss, birth trauma, and the transition to parenthood—often carry profound, multilayered grief that is frequently unrecognized, disenfranchised, or minimized within both clinical and societal systems. These experiences do not occur in isolation; they are shaped by relational dynamics, medical systems, cultural narratives of parenthood, and intergenerational patterns of coping and attachment. 

This workshop will explore reproductive mental health through a systemic and relational lens, positioning reproductive grief as a form of chronic, layered, and embodied systemic grief. Participants will deepen their understanding of how these experiences impact identity, partnership, sexuality, and family systems, while also examining the ways clinicians themselves are impacted by holding this work. 

This 2-hour experiential workshop will integrate psychoeducation, case vignettes, and interactive exercises to support clinicians in identifying and naming systemic reproductive grief, navigating relational ruptures and disconnection within couples, supporting meaning-making and post-traumatic growth, and maintaining therapist presence without burnout or over-identification. Participants will leave with practical, trauma-informed, and relationally grounded tools to support clients across the reproductive spectrum, while also reconnecting to their own capacity for grounded, compassionate presence.

Workshop Series C  

Friday, June 26th, 2025 2:30pm-4:20pm

2 CEs Offered

Workshop C1: Isomorphic Wellness: Minimizing Clinician Burnout Through Trauma-Informed Supervision

Presenter: Mary Nedela, Ph.D, LMFT

In a society with increasing tension and division, our work as systemic helpers is more important than ever. As in individuals embedded within this tumultuous society, we are not immune to the toll it takes on our mental health and well-being. It is not uncommon for MFTs to experience burnout due to the confluence of personal reactions to social turmoil and client experiences of social injustice and/or trauma. In fact, almost half of clinicians reported experiencing burnout and half of those clinicians stated their burnout worsened since COVID-19 (Canady, 2023). Burnout tends to be worse for clinicians with marginalized identities (Shell et al., 2022). Given that burnout can lead to an increased risk of poor work performance, including unethical and illegal actions, it is critical for supervisors to recognize signs of burnout among their supervisees and act when necessary. This is particularly important for supervisors of graduate students and associate level MFTs. This presentation will discuss common signs and symptoms of burnout among clinicians from an inclusive, trauma- informed, developmental perspective. Additionally, the presenter will provide strategies supervisors can implement in their supervision to prevent and minimize burnout experiences as well as to support self-care and wellness for supervisees who experience burnout. During the presentation, audience members will have the opportunity to discuss their experiences in small groups as well as collaborate with one another to incorporate trauma- informed supervision strategies into their existing supervision approach.

Workshop C2:  Anger, Ambiguity, and After: Navigating LGBTQ Identity and Grief in the Current Climate

Presenter: Sarah Gilbert, LCSW

Many LGBTQ clients carry forms of grief that aren’t explicitly named in therapy. Experiences like family estrangement, loss of community belonging, identity suppression, and ongoing sociopolitical hostility create layered, compounding forms of systemic grief which shape the emotional landscape of therapy. In the current climate, LGBTQ clients’ grief may present as anger, exhaustion, dark humor, or emotional numbing rather than traditional expressions of sadness. This workshop integrates systemic grief frameworks with experiential reflections and practical clinical tools to support therapists in responding to the relational and societal dimensions that shape LGBTQ clients’ grief experiences. Participants will leave with practical clinical tools, deeper insight into the layered grief that clients carry, as well as a sense of shared connection with other clinicians who are committed to holding this work with care, courage and compassion.

Workshop C3: Exploring the Relationship between the Grievers and the Healers: Shifting from a Problem to be Solved to an Experience to be Tended to

Presenters: Jeanne Murray, LMFT

 What changes when grief is no longer treated as a problem to solve, but as an experience to be tended to? This workshop invites mental health professionals to reconsider their role in the healing process by exploring the relational space between grievers and healers. Rather than focusing on fixing or resolving grief, participants will examine how presence, connection, and compassion create the conditions for healing to unfold.

Through a holistic framework, we will explore how grief touches every dimension of the human experience - physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual for both clients and practitioners. The workshop will highlight how our responses as healers are shaped by cultural expectations, professional training, and personal beliefs about loss.

Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how to support grief as an ongoing, relational process; one that is not linear or prescriptive, but deeply human. Emphasis will be placed on cultivating self-awareness, recognizing systemic and cultural influences, and strengthening the capacity to “tend to” rather than “fix” the pain of loss.

CTAMFT Advocacy Workshop 

Friday, June 26th, 2025 4:30pm-5:30pm

1 CE Offered

Workshop Title: Advocacy Wins and Legislative Changes in Connecticut

Workshop Presenter: Jaime Rodriguez, LMFT

This workshop is designed to educate Mental Health Professionals about the legal and ethical basics of being a therapist in Connecticut. It will cover the basics of the many ways to get involved in advocacy for MFTs.  We will outline the recent advocacy “wins” in our state after the 2026 Legislative session as well as how they will impact MFTs.  This workshop will also cover any recent legislative changes that impact MFTs in order for attendees to understand how to remain in good standing ethically and legally as MFTs in Connecticut. 

Ready to register? Go to our events page here!