Pregnancy and Infant Loss

CPD

Planning Committee Disclosure - No relevant relationships

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

Handouts

Faculty

Julie Bindeman, PsyD Related seminars and products

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Julie Bindeman, PsyD, pursued intensive training in the field of reproductive psychology, in which she writes, teaches, and practices, as a result of her own reproductive story. Dr. Bindeman has served on the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s mental health professional group, including on the executive, continuing education, and social media committees, as well as on their antiracism task force. She was appointed by the governor of Maryland to serve on that state’s Maternal Mental Health Task Force, and she has served on the board and committees of organizations such as the Maryland Psychological Association, the National Abortion Rights Action League – Maryland, Rainbow Families, the Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse, and Uprooted. Dr. Bindeman has received several awards for her work, including the Karl F. Heiser APA Presidential Award for Advocacy and the National Council of Jewish Women’s Woman Who Dared Award. She has authored book chapters on maternal mental health and is co-owner of Integrative Therapy of Greater Washington, a private psychotherapy practice located in Rockville, MD.
 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Julie Bindeman is the co-director of Integrative Therapy of Greater Washington. She receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from Psychotherapy Networker and PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Julie Bindeman serves on the executive committee for the Mental Health Professional Group of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine. She is a member of American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Mental Health Association of Montgomery County, American Psychological Association, and Maryland Psychological Association.

Additional Info

Access never expires for this product. For a more detailed outline that includes times or durations of time, if needed, please contact cepesi@pesi.com.

Objectives

1. Evaluate three differences in client responses to pregnancy and infant loss and their clinical implications.
2. Formulate two ways that loss interrupts the developmental tasks of pregnancy.
3. Devise two strategies for responding to relationship conflict after loss.
4. Distinguish grief from postpartum depression.
5. Utilize two cognitive therapy strategies to decrease clients’ self-blame related to pregnancy and infant loss.
6. Demonstrate one therapeutically effective use of countertransference.

Outline

Gradations of Grief: Types of Early Bereavement

• Intake assessment strategies for obtaining reproductive information 
• Nuances of loss in early pregnancy - miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, abortion, medical termination, stillbirth 
• Developmental tasks of pregnancy and how loss interrupts them 
• Coping with NICU admission and neonatal death 
• Medical factors facing bereaved parents 
• Infertility grief 
• Disenfranchised grief - the loss of possibility and what could have been  

Tools to Help Grieving Parents and their Communities 

• Individual, couple, and family phases of grief - and when to be concerned 
• Living children and loss 
• Clinical management of higher rates of relationship conflict and divorce after loss 
• Distinguish grief versus postpartum depression 
• Language around loss - key things to say and not to say 
• How culture supports or does not support grief and loss 
• Best practices for managing grief milestones and establishing mourning rituals 
• Grief management during subsequent attempts to conceive 

Therapy after Pregnancy and Infant Loss

• Exploring clients’ reproductive journey and narrative 
• Crisis interventions to help shift clients out of shock  
• Stabilization phase - resourcing tools to manage the expected flood of emotions  
• Tailor existing evidence-based interventions to this clinical situation 
  • Cognitive strategies for assisting parents with neutralizing shame and self-blame 
  • Behavioural techniques to manage loss-related triggers 
  • Mindfulness and values-based interventions to assist parents with creating meaning  
  • Trauma processing techniques for resolving PTSD-related symptoms 
• Clinical strategies to support bereaved parents during subsequent pregnancies and the postpartum period after loss 
• How and when to end therapy when pregnancy or infant loss was the presenting problem 

Clinical Considerations 

• Therapeutic use and management of countertransference  
• Self-care and burnout protection for therapists’ whose own symptoms or grief is activated  
• Moral injury around limited resource availability  
• Establishing cultural competency - inclusive practices for all individuals and family systems 
• When and how to refer to couples therapy and support groups 
• Research limitations and potential risks 

Target Audience

• Counsellors  
• Social Workers  
• Psychologists  
• Psychiatrists  
• Marriage & Family Therapists  
• Addiction Counsellors  
• Other mental health professionals  
• Physicians  
• Nurses  
• Occupational Therapists