To mark #ParentalAlienationAwarenessDay, we’re announcing our new free training programme on managing the emotions of being separated from your child. Love, Loss and Living launches in May 2023, for more info contact dm@sharedparenting.scot.
Love, Loss and Living is a 6-week online course developed in collaboration with Edinburgh-based accredited Psychotherapist Jan Montgomery that aims to help you understand and manage the grief of being separated from your child or children.
The course will be launching in May 2023 after a successful in-person pilot in late 2022, and will be free online with the option of additional in-person coaching sessions led by a qualified Psychotherapist.
The course is split into three sections:
- Love: we’ll explore the Love you have for your child, the neuroscience of love, and loving-kindness meditation.
- Loss: we’ll introduce the topic of Loss, explore the impact of your emotions, others’ emotions, and culture on Loss, and explore psychological models of Loss
- Living: we’ll end by looking at healthy coping strategies and how to integrate them into your life, the power and importance of Self Care, and set some goals for the next 12 months to help you think positively about the future.
The course also explores the painful experience of Parental Alienation – when a child entirely rejects without reason one parent after divorce or separation and cuts off completely from what was previously a close and loving relationship with that parent. Click here to find out more. Section 4 of the Love, Loss and Living course explores Parental Alienation, what it is, and techniques on how to support yourself if you’re experiencing it, including interactive activities.
You can hear about the training from our Training Manager, David Maclean, below:
The course is freely available online with a module released weekly, and is supplemented by optional in-person training sessions that will be delivered by Heather Boyle, a qualified Psychotherapist and registered member of the British Association for Counsellors and Psychotherapists. (MBACP) – you can find out more about Heather here.
A six-session in-person pilot version of the course was run in October 2022 led by Jan Montgomery and you can view feedback of the course below:
- “It has helped me focus on the importance of my own wellbeing. For me, fear and anxieties still surface going through events and difficulties that occur due to loss of contact, but I see my situation in a more fluid manner now” – Father on Pilot Session
- “I found the space that was created and held within the meetings allowed me to relax and there is a positive process now underway for me” – Mother on Pilot Session
- “I appreciate that now is a time to nurture a deeper acceptance of my situation – Father on Pilot Session