Academically Grounded. Clinically Effective. Cutting Edge. A Master Class for Therapists and Counsellors Working with Grief
Stage models and cathartic repetition no longer capture the complexity of grief. Cutting-edge theory now emphasizes pendulation, trauma-informed relational containers, identity transformation, and post-traumatic growth. This master class synthesizes these frameworks — from Worden’s Tasks to the Dual-Process Model — and shows you how to operationalize them with Logosynthesis in clinical practice.
Across eight weeks and sixteen hours, you will engage in a deliberate balance of conceptual integration and supervised practice. You’ll learn to recognize looping narratives and frozen roles, to contain activation safely in a trauma-informed relational container, and to work with Logosynthesis to dissolve frozen grief dynamics. The outcome is a coherent model — academically grounded, clinically effective, and cutting edge — that you can apply immediately with clients, aligning your grief work with the field’s most current thinking.
When You Sidestep the Traps, You Make Healing Possible
In grief counselling, good intentions often fall into predictable traps:
Looping narratives that circle endlessly without integration.
Identity foreclosure that leaves clients bound to frozen roles and unfinished bonds.
Affect dysregulation when sessions activate more than the container can hold.
Premature detachment or avoidance that bypasses meaning-making and blocks growth.
When you sidestep these traps, you help clients regulate affect without avoidance or overwhelm, support the reconstruction of identity, and anchor resilience and growth. You finish sessions energized rather than depleted, with a clear sense of process and a precise method to move clients forward.
Why This Works
Grief therapy is changing. Stage models and cathartic storytelling no longer capture the complexity of adaptation. Academic research now emphasizes pendulation between loss and restoration, the necessity of trauma-informed relational containers, and the centrality of identity transformation and post-traumatic growth. Yet many practitioners are left with a practical gap: how do you bring these logics into clinical work?
Healing Through Grief closes that gap. This seminar connects Worden’s Tasks, the Dual-Process Model, relational psychology, trauma-informed practice, and post-traumatic growth — and shows how these converge in practice with Logosynthesis. You will learn to identify looping narratives, unfinished wishes, and frozen roles, and to process them safely within a relational container. By working this way, you help clients regulate affect without avoidance or overwhelm, support the reconstruction of identity, and anchor resilience and growth. The result is a coherent, academically grounded model you can use immediately in your practice.
Your Guide
Alan Rojas Yacolca
Founder & Lead Trainer, The Andes Institute
For nearly 20 years I’ve accompanied people through some of life’s most profound changes — as a coach, therapist, and educator. My work spans individual counselling, group facilitation, and international training, always with one focus: helping people move from stuckness into renewal.
In recent years, my attention has turned to grief and transitions. I’ve seen how stage models and cathartic repetition often fail to create movement, and how clients need approaches that are trauma-informed, relationally safe, and oriented toward growth. My academic and practice-based work now focuses on connecting frameworks — from Worden’s Tasks and Dual-Process Theory, to relational psychology and post-traumatic growth — and showing how they can be operationalized in practice with Logosynthesis.
I teach not only as a therapist, but as a colleague. My role is to help therapists, counsellors, and coaches update their practice to reflect the field’s current thinking, and to equip them with models that are academically rigorous and clinically effective. I see training not as adding more techniques, but as learning to think strategically: how frameworks interconnect, how exploration primes the process, and how growth can be anchored after change. My intention is to create a space where professionals feel both challenged and supported, able to bring new precision to their work while reconnecting with the deeper meaning of why we do it.
Foundations That Guide Real Change
Healing Through Grief is anchored in the four pillars shaping contemporary grief counselling. Each of these frameworks is well known in the field — what this seminar offers is the way to connect and operationalize them in practice with Logosynthesis.
Worden’s Tasks of Grief meets the Dual-Process Model: Together they highlight pendulation between loss orientation and restoration orientation as the adaptive rhythm of grieving.
Relational Psychology and Trauma-Informed Safety: Attunement, affect regulation, and exploration as the therapeutic container where activation becomes safe and workable.
Logosynthesis: A precise method for processing frozen images, unfinished wishes, and identity ruptures — not as an add-on technique, but integrated within relational and theoretical frames.
Post-Traumatic Growth: Grief as a site for resilience, renewed priorities, and identity evolution — anchoring clinical work in transformation rather than symptom reduction alone.
Designed for Practitioners
This program was created for therapists and counsellors who recognize the clinical challenges of grief work today:
Clients who remain caught in looping narratives that don’t resolve.
Difficulty balancing affect regulation with safe activation in session.
The persistence of identity foreclosure or unfinished bonds that resist change.
A gap between academic models of grief and the reality of day-to-day clinical practice.
Healing Through Grief addresses these challenges by offering clear learning objectives. By the end of the seminar you will be able to:
Recognize and name clinical stuckness in grief (looping, frozen roles, blocked meaning).
Establish a trauma-informed relational container that allows activation without overwhelm.
Work with Logosynthesis to process frozen images, unfinished wishes, and ruptured roles.
Anchor outcomes in post-traumatic growth: resilience, renewed priorities, and identity evolution.
Integrate exploration, energy-based processing, and growth reflection into a coherent model for practice.
This is not a general introduction to grief or to Logosynthesis. It is a specialist master class, designed for therapists or counselors who want their grief work to reflect the field’s most current academic thinking, and who are ready to translate that thinking into precise clinical action.
Program Structure - Online via Zoom
Healing Through Grief is an eight-week, 16-hour master class that balances conceptual integration with supervised practice. Odd weeks emphasize theoretical depth and experiential group work; even weeks focus on dyad practice, case formulation, and live supervision.
A master class in scope, a lab in method — you will learn frameworks with academic rigor and practice them in real time under supervision.
A sharper clinical lens for recognizing stuck grief
→ Clients often present with looping narratives or identity foreclosure, circling around loss without resolution. Learning to identify these patterns — and to contain activation within a trauma-informed relational frame — prevents overwhelm and creates the safety required for transformation.
A precise method for dissolving frozen grief dynamics
→ Research highlights pendulation and activation, but many therapists ask: what do I do in the moment? You will learn a reliable way to process grief reactions, unfinished wishes, or relational blockages. Practicing this under supervision ensures you can move beyond abstract theory into precise intervention.
A way to guide identity reconstruction
→ Grief is not only about the loss of someone else, but about the loss of self: Who am I now? Working with frozen roles and prohibitions allows you to support clients in updating identity. Integrating Logosynthesis with relational exploration anchors this work in meaning-making and post-traumatic growth.
An integrated cycle you can apply immediately
→ Theories of grief emphasize tasks, processes, and growth, but often remain fragmented. By bringing together relational exploration, Logosynthesis, and growth reflection into one supervised cycle, you gain a coherent model that you can carry directly into clinical practice.
You might be wondering...
I’ve already studied grief counseling — what’s new here?
Will this help with unresolved grief from years ago?”
What if I’m not ready for my own grief work?
Can I use this if my client is skeptical?
Guidance, Feedback, and Community
You won’t be left alone to figure things out.
- You’ll be guided in how to pace work, set anchors, and lead clients through challenging moments without retraumatization.
- In supervision, you’ll receive personalized feedback not just on technique, but on how you hold relational safety, regulate affect, and pace clients through frozen moments.
- In small practice groups, you’ll watch how others navigate avoidance, flooding, or ambivalence, and learn through direct observation.
- The community of practitioners becomes a safe place to refine your stance, share struggles, and celebrate breakthroughs.
By the end, you’ll not only know the methods, you’ll embody a therapeutic presence that supports real transformation.
Next Cohort: Spring 2026.
Interested? Please join our waiting list and be the first to know when this program opens its doors again.
Healing Through Grief
One-time opportunity-
Live Teaching & Demonstration (biweekly, 2 hrs): Learn the framework, see methods in action.
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Practice & Supervision (biweekly, 2 hrs): Small-group practice with feedback on pacing, safety, and technique.
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Recognize & Release Stuck Grief: Tools for frozen memories, unfinished wishes, and emotional charge.
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Relational Safety & Regulation: Learn to guide clients without overwhelm or shutdown.
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Identity Transition & Growth: Support clients in rebuilding self and meaning after loss.
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Ongoing Community: Private group of up to 28 practitioners for shared learning and support.
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The Andes Promise: Leave with the clarity, skills, and presence to hold grief as a pathway to freedom and flow.
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Recordings of all theory and exploration sessions
I am committed to making this training accessible. A limited number of partial scholarships are available for those with financial constraints — reach out to discuss possibilities at: alan(at)andes.institute
The Andes Promise: Your Transformation Through This Program
Healing Through Grief is not a general grief course. It is a specialist master class, designed for therapists, counsellors, and coaching professionals who want their work to reflect the field’s most current academic insights and to be anchored in precise, trauma-informed methods.
Academically rigorous → You will connect Worden’s Tasks, Dual-Process Theory, relational psychology, and post-traumatic growth — frameworks you may already know — and learn how to operationalize them in practice with Logosynthesis. This ensures your grief counselling is aligned with contemporary research, not outdated stage models.
Clinically effective → Many trainings emphasize theory without tools, or tools without theory. Here, you gain both: a coherent cycle of relational exploration, Logosynthesis processing, and growth reflection. This gives you a structured way to move clients beyond looping narratives and into renewal.
Immediately usable → By the end of the eight weeks, you will have practiced this cycle under supervision. That means you don’t just understand it conceptually — you can apply it confidently with clients in real sessions.
This is the Andes promise: a program that bridges the academy and the clinic, offering you a practitioner-ready framework that is contemporary, safe, and transformative. You will leave not only updated in your thinking, but equipped with a model you can bring into your practice the very next day.