ADEC’s 2026 Annual Conference

Baltimore, Maryland, USA

2026 Specialty Workshop AM (No CEs) 

Meaning-Centered Grief Therapy

Wendy Lichtenthal, PhD, FT

Wednesday, March 4, 2026

1:30pm-4:45pm ET/Baltimore Time Zone

IN-PERSON ONLY

A significant loss commonly challenges a griever’s sense of purpose, meaning, and identity as well as adaptive meaning-making processes. These challenges sometimes contribute to and are even indicative of prolonged, debilitating grief reactions. Grief experts have therefore long-argued the value of focusing on “meaning” in therapeutic pursuits. This workshop will provide an overview of a manualized therapeutic approach, Meaning-Centered Grief Therapy (MCGT), and its core principles. Drawing on research of MCGT with bereaved parents, examples of exercises that may facilitate meaning-making processes and may enhance a sense of meaning will be described, with opportunities for discussion of applications of MCGT. Presentation Level: Intermediate.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify meaning-making challenges that grieving individuals commonly face.
2. Describe Meaning-Centered Grief Therapy and its core principles.
3. Discuss exercises that may facilitate adaptive meaning-making and enhance the griever’s sense of meaning.

About the Presenter:

Wendy Lichtenthal, PhD, FT, is Founding Director of the Center for the Advancement of Bereavement Care at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Prevention Science and Community Health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and has worked as a grief specialist and psycho-oncologist for over 25 years. Since 2005, she has been at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), where she was Founding Director of the Bereavement Clinic and where she now serves as Consultant Faculty. She was a recipient of the 2012 International Psycho-Oncology Society Kawano New Investigator Award, the 2019 Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) Research Recognition Award, and the 2023 American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS) Outstanding Clinical Care Award. She is a Fellow in Thanatology and was elected to the ADEC Board of Directors in 2023 and to the APOS Fellowship in 2024. Funded by the National Institutes Health, American Cancer Society, Martell Foundation, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the Health Foundation of South Florida, her research focuses on grief and bereavement, intervention development and evaluation, and finding meaning in the face of adversity.