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Ambiguous Grief and Loss in Narcissistic and Emotionally Abusive Relationships

CLINICAL EVENTS

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Ambiguous Grief and Loss in Narcissistic and Emotionally Abusive Relationships

Ambiguous Grief and Loss in Narcissistic and Emotionally Abusive Relationships

Aug. 8, 2026

10:00 AM - 1:15 PM (EST)

Virtual Event
3 CE Credits
Grief work is inextricably intertwined with healing from trauma and abuse, making it imperative that we understand its role and impact. In this training, we will explore the role that complex grief and ambiguous loss play in healing from narcissistic abuse.

This training is designed to help clinicians to recognize,  understand, and support clients through processing the complex grief and  ambiguous losses they may encounter in a narcissistic or emotionally abusive  relationship. Clinicians will learn how healing from narcissistic abuse  introduces changes in the relationship, which may lead to ambiguous grief and  loss such as estrangement.

Attendees will also learn what makes grief and loss in abusive relationships complex, including grieving a relationship that, while  abusive and harmful, also included familial/romantic love. Attendees will  learn to understand grief and loss as it occurs on multiple levels and  directions, including grief for events of the past, present and future.  Finally, this training will help clinicians understand the importance of  honoring this complex grief as a necessary part of healing.

Session Highlights
  • The role of grief in healing from narcissistic abuse
  • What makes grief complex and loss ambiguous
  • Grieving in multiple dimensions simultaneously
  • Normalizing the experience of complex grief
  • Bereavement and loss
Key Takeaways For Clinicians

“Ambiguous Grief is a complex and often overlooked experience in clients dealing with narcissistic and emotionally abusive relationships. This Ambiguous Grief can create confusion, unresolved loss, and emotional distress that is difficult to process through traditional grief models, as the loss is often unclear or ongoing. Through understanding Ambiguous Grief, clinicians can better recognize patterns of attachment, trauma, and relational loss that impact a client’s emotional well-being.

This course highlights how Ambiguous Grief affects mental health, decision-making, and self-identity, while offering practical strategies to support healing and emotional regulation. By addressing Ambiguous Grief in therapy, clinicians can help clients move toward clarity, validation, and long-term recovery. For additional insight into grief and mental health, clinicians can explore resources provided by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)”.

This live interactive webinar is designed for behavioral health professionals, including:

  • Counselors
  • Social Workers
  • Psychotherapists
  • Marriage & Family Therapists
  • Psychologists
  • Substance Use Disorders Counselors
  • Case Managers
  • Physicians
  • Other Mental Health Professionals
Amy Marlow-MaCoy, LPCAmy Marlow-MaCoy, MEd, LPC

Narcissistic Abuse, Gaslighting & Trauma CE Expert

Amy Marlow-MaCoy, MEd, LPC, is a licensed professional counselor, author, consultant, mentor, and continuing education presenter whose work focuses on narcissistic abuse, gaslighting, complex developmental trauma, and relational trauma. She works with the clinical realities that can arise when a person grows up in a narcissistic, emotionally immature, emotionally abusive, or otherwise harmful family system. Her teaching helps mental health professionals recognize how chronic invalidation, manipulation, attachment disruption, and loss of self-trust may shape a client’s emotional life, relationships, boundaries, and sense of identity.

Amy brings a careful, trauma-informed perspective to subjects that are often simplified in popular culture. Rather than treating every difficult relationship as evidence of narcissism, she encourages clinicians to examine patterns, context, power, impact, and the client’s lived experience. Her work supports thoughtful assessment while helping therapists understand the forms of shame, grief, confusion, self-doubt, people-pleasing, and emotional dysregulation that may follow prolonged relational harm.

Alongside her clinical practice, Amy provides education and professional development for therapists who want to become more competent in supporting survivors of narcissistic abuse. Through speaking, writing, consultation, and mentoring, she translates complex relational dynamics into practical clinical concepts that can strengthen case formulation, treatment planning, therapeutic boundaries, and recovery-oriented care.

Professional Background

Amy earned a Master of Education in counseling psychology from Temple University and is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Pennsylvania. She maintains a private practice focused on complex and developmental trauma and is the owner and founder of the Courageous Heart Institute, a professional learning and mentoring space for clinicians working with survivors of narcissistic abuse and complex relational trauma.

Her clinical work centers particularly on adults raised by narcissistic, emotionally immature, or emotionally abusive caregivers. Many clients in this population do not initially describe their childhood experiences as trauma or abuse. They may instead seek therapy for chronic anxiety, perfectionism, guilt, relationship difficulties, emotional numbness, fear of conflict, unstable self-worth, or persistent uncertainty about whether their needs and perceptions are valid. Amy’s work helps clinicians connect these presenting concerns with the client’s developmental and relational history without imposing conclusions or relying on labels in place of assessment.

Amy’s professional profile documents training in Internal Family Systems, Brainspotting, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and the Syzygy Model, which integrates concepts from IFS and EMDR. Her profile lists Internal Family Systems Levels 1, 2, and 3; Brainspotting Phases 1 and 2 with specialty training; EMDR basic training; and Syzygy Model–informed practice. These approaches inform her understanding of protective responses, traumatic memory, attachment wounds, emotional activation, and the internal conflicts that can remain after a person has left or emotionally separated from a harmful relationship.

As a continuing education presenter, Amy has delivered training through organizations including PESI, Impact CE, Elevate CE, Evergreen Certifications, and Clinical Events. Her programs address narcissistic abuse, gaslighting, adult children of narcissists, ambiguous loss, complex grief, relational trauma, and ethical clinical care. Her teaching emphasizes both validation and precision: therapists can acknowledge a client’s experience of harm while avoiding unsupported diagnoses of people who have not been clinically assessed.

Amy is also the author of The Gaslighting Recovery Workbook: Healing from Emotional Abuse, published by Callisto in 2020. She later co-authored The Clinician’s Guide to Treating Adult Children of Narcissists: Pulling Back the Curtain on Manipulation, Gaslighting, and Emotional Abuse in Narcissistic Families, published by PESI Publishing in 2023. Together, these works reflect her dual commitment to helping survivors understand relational harm and helping clinicians provide informed, ethical treatment.

Areas of Expertise

Narcissistic Abuse and Emotionally Harmful Family Systems. Amy specializes in the effects of growing up with narcissistic, emotionally immature, toxic, or emotionally abusive caregivers. Her work helps clinicians understand how family roles, conditional approval, chronic criticism, emotional neglect, blame-shifting, and pressure to protect the family system can influence adult relationships and self-concept. This perspective is especially relevant when clients minimize their experiences or feel guilty for acknowledging harm.

Gaslighting and the Erosion of Self-Trust. Gaslighting can leave clients unsure of their memories, interpretations, emotions, and ability to make decisions. Amy’s clinical and educational work addresses the process of identifying manipulative patterns while helping clients reconnect with their own perceptions and agency. Therapists seeking additional context can review Clinical Events’ clinical overview of gaslighting and its discussion of clinical profiles associated with gaslighting behavior.

Complex Developmental and Relational Trauma. Amy’s work recognizes that trauma may result from repeated interpersonal experiences rather than a single event. Chronic invalidation, unpredictable caregiving, emotional manipulation, and attachment disruption can affect emotional regulation, identity, boundaries, and the ability to feel safe in relationships. Her trauma-informed approach helps clinicians consider these interconnected effects when developing treatment goals.

Adult Children of Narcissistic or Emotionally Immature Caregivers. Adults raised in harmful family systems may present with people-pleasing, overfunctioning, perfectionism, shame, fear of disappointing others, or difficulty recognizing and communicating their needs. Amy helps therapists identify these patterns without assuming that every family conflict represents narcissistic abuse. Her work encourages a nuanced assessment of behavior, power, repetition, developmental context, and impact.

Ambiguous Grief, Estrangement, and Relational Loss. Healing from narcissistic or emotionally abusive relationships can involve grief that lacks a clear ending. Clients may grieve the caregiver or relationship they needed but did not have, the possibility of future repair, lost time, disrupted family connections, or the emotional cost of setting boundaries. Amy’s training helps clinicians recognize these layered losses and support clients without pressuring them toward reconciliation, estrangement, or another predetermined outcome.

Clinical Boundaries, Countertransference, and Ethical Treatment. Work involving narcissistic traits and relational abuse may evoke strong reactions in therapists. Amy addresses the importance of consultation, self-awareness, careful documentation, and maintaining a therapeutic stance that combines empathy with accountability. Clinical Events’ resource on challenges therapists face when treating narcissistic clients offers additional discussion of alliance difficulties, defensiveness, transference, countertransference, and treatment boundaries.

Clinician Education, Consultation, and Mentoring. Amy supports therapists seeking a more comprehensive understanding of narcissistic abuse and complex relational trauma. Her educational work is designed to help clinicians move beyond social-media terminology and develop stronger assessment, formulation, intervention, and ethical decision-making skills. Across her speaking, mentoring, and writing, she emphasizes care that restores client autonomy while respecting complexity and avoiding premature conclusions.

Authored Publications
  • The Gaslighting Recovery Workbook: Healing from Emotional Abuse
  • The Clinician’s Guide to Treating Adult Children of Narcissists: Pulling Back the Curtain on Manipulation, Gaslighting, and Emotional Abuse in Narcissistic Families

After this training, participants will be able to:

  • Differentiate ambiguous loss from other  losses and identify relevant clinical implications.
  • Describe how internalized guilt and shame  instilled by narcissistic family of origin complicate grief, particularly when  a narcissistic loved one dies and clients are unable to achieve resolution.
  • Support clients in exploring all dimensions of grief work, including what did and did not happen.

10:00 -10:05 am – Introduction

10:05-10:30 am –The role of grief in healing from emotionally abusive relationships

10:30-11:00 am -Understanding why clients grieve harmful relationships and individuals

11:00-11:30 am -Ambiguous losses in emotionally abusive relationships

11:30-11:45 am – Break

11:45-12:15 pm –Complex grief: The past that was, and the past that was not

12:15-12:45 pm – Complex grief: The present that is, and the present that can’t be

12:45-1:05 pm – Complex grief: The future that is, and the future that will not come

1:05-1:15 pm – Q&A

All levels.

Registration Cost

Registration $67 | Aug. 8 | Virtual Event | 3 CE Credits | 10:00 am – 1:15 pm ET

Registration Deadline:  Aug. 8, 2026

Cancellation Policy

All registrations are non-refundable. However, you may request a full credit toward a future training if:

  • You notify us at least 72 hours before the event starts.
  • Credit is valid for up to 6 months from the original event date.
  • No credit will be issued for no-shows or cancellations made on the same day.
  • When you register for an event, you agree to these terms

Please email [email protected] to request a credit or reschedule.

A total of 3 CE credits are available.

Additional Approvals Pending.


ASWB ACE

Clinical Events, LLC, (provider # 2201) is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 11/01/2025 – 11/01/2028.

NBCC

Clinical Events, LLC has been approved by NBCC as an Approved   Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7643 Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Clinical Events, LLC is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

NAADAC

This course has been approved by Clinical Events, as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider #320899, Clinical Events is responsible for all aspects of the programming.

NY State Board of Psychologists

Clinical Events, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0292.

NY State Board of Psychoanalysts

Clinical Events, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts #P-0073.

NY State Board of Social Workers

Clinical Events, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0828.

NY State Board of Mental Health Counselors

Clinical Events, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. #MHC-0329.

NY State Board of Marriage & Family Therapists

Clinical Events, LLC is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0140.

NJ State Board of Social Workers & Professional Counselors

The New Jersey Social Work Examiners Board accepts ASWB ACE Provider credits. The New Jersey Professional Counselors Board accepts NBCC-approved CE provider credits.

All Other States Social Workers & Professional Counselors

All other states accept ASWB ACE Provider credits and NBCC-approved CE provider credits. Licensees are responsible for determining whether courses meet the CE requirements in their jurisdictions. States and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for credit.

Florida Certification Board

Clinical Events is approved by the Florida Certification Board (FCB) to offer continuing education programs (Provider # 5527-A).

Canada Social Workers

BC, AB, SK, MB, ON, and QC accept ASWB ACE-approved provider programs to meet licensure renewal requirements.  Licensees are responsible for determining whether courses meet the CE requirements in their province. Provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for credit.

Canada Counsellors

Clinical Events is an NBCC-approved provider.  Licensees are responsible for determining whether courses meet the CE requirements in their province. Provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for credit.

Please contact us if you would like to inquire about applicable approvals for your continuing education (CE) needs.

Each professional is responsible for understanding and meeting the specific CE requirements set by their individual licensing board or regulatory agency. We encourage you to reach out to your licensing body directly to confirm how our programs apply toward your licensure renewal.

Questions:  [email protected]

In accordance with continuing education standards and requirements, the presenter discloses that they have no relevant financial relationships, affiliations, or conflicts of interest to report.

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