Grief Therapy Learning Retreat | Kananaskis, Alberta Canada 2026

CANADA RETREAT

Grief Therapy Learning Retreat | Kananaskis, Canada 2026
Location: Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge, Alberta, Canada
Dates: 18–21 June, 2026

Cultivating Meaning and Compassion in Loss:

Core Techniques for Grief Therapists

Overview

Are you a grief-focused or trauma-informed therapist seeking to deepen your clinical practice and reconnect with your own sense of meaning and resilience?

Join us in the Canadian Rockies for a four-day International Therapists’ Retreat near Banff, Alberta – hosted at Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge, a mountain resort surrounded by forests, rivers, and wide open sky.

This retreat has been designed as an international learning space, bringing together clinicians from across Europe, North America, and beyond for shared reflection, practice, and professional exchange.

Led by internationally recognised grief specialists Dr Robert Neimeyer and Dr Darcy Harris, this retreat offers a rich blend of teaching, self-practice, and reflective space. It is designed for therapists and professionals in caring roles who work with grief, loss, transition, and trauma – and who also need somewhere safe to rest, learn, and be held in community.

Whether you’re looking to deepen your grief therapy skills, explore your own relationship with loss, or simply step outside daily pressures and reconnect with your work in a spacious setting, this retreat offers a thoughtful, well-supported container to do just that.

What to Expect

This retreat weaves together experiential learning, clinical input, and restorative time, creating a space where both your professional and personal self can be nourished.

Over the course of the retreat, you can expect:

• Embodied insight into grief therapy – not just theory, but lived experience through structured exercises, reflection, and gentle group work.

• A renewed relationship with your own story of loss and transition, held in a safe and clinically attuned environment.

• Ways to integrate grief-informed and meaning-centred approaches more fully into your everyday practice.

• Practical, evidence-informed tools and frameworks drawn from meaning-oriented grief therapy, continuing bonds models, trauma-informed practice, and compassion-based approaches.

• A deeper sense of groundedness, clarity, and professional confidence in this area of work.

And perhaps most importantly… a chance to step outside your usual roles, to be the one who is held, supported, and restored – rather than the one who is always holding others.

What’s Included

• 🏔️ Three nights’ accommodation at Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge

• 🧠 Daily grief therapy and self-practice workshops with Dr Robert Neimeyer, and Dr Darcy Harris

• 🥗 Breakfast, lunch, and dinner for each full day (plus welcome dinner and farewell breakfast)

• 🌲 A curated, low-impact outdoor group experience (such as a reflective forest walk or lakeside grounding practice), offering space for integration, reflection, and self-renewal.

• ☕ Scheduled coffee/tea breaks

• 📱 Access to our Retreat App

• 🎁 Special welcome gift and retreat materials

• 🌲 Time and space to explore the surrounding forest and mountain paths

• 🤝 On-site support from the EventWise/RetreatWise team

Flights and airport transfers are not included.

Contact us via email or  WhatsApp on +44 (0) 789 820 8540 for more information.

Who Should Attend?

This retreat is designed for professionals in caring and clinical roles, including:

• Psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors

• Psychiatrists, social workers, mental health practitioners

• Bereavement workers and hospice staff

• Clergy and chaplains involved in grief support

• Other professionals who regularly engage with grief, loss, or transition in their work

Some familiarity with grief theory or grief therapy is helpful but not mandatory. The retreat will be structured so that both those newer to the work and those with long clinical experience can benefit.  Continuing Education (CE) credit information is available for eligible professionals.
View CE/CPD details HERE 

Continuing Professional Development (CPD / CE Credits)

This retreat has been designed to meet the continuing professional development needs of clinicians and practitioners working in grief, loss, and bereavement.

Continuing Education (CE) credits are available for eligible participants through the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition. These credits are administered independently by the Institute and are optional.

Key details:

• Instructional Level: Intermediate

• Target Audience: Mental health professionals working with grief, loss, trauma, and transition

• Format: In-person, experiential and didactic learning

• Estimated Contact Hours: 18 Credits Earned

Further information about CE/CPD eligibility can be found HERE. 

Retreat Pricing & Accommodation

Packages & Availability

We offer simple, all-inclusive pricing with two accommodation options.
Our Early Bird rates are available until 8 March 2026.

All packages include:

• 3 nights’ accommodation at Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge

• All main meals throughout the programme

• All curated reflective activities

• Full access to the retreat workshops and materials

If you’d like to share a room with a colleague or friend, please ensure you both purchase the Shared Occupancy package below.  Shared rooms are within the Lodge Room category and will include either one king bed or two queen beds, depending on availability.  

International Event & Currency

This is an international, in-person training retreat organised by EventWise NI, based in the UK and Ireland, and delivered in Canada with an international faculty and participant group. As a result, all registrations are processed in GBP (£) via our secure checkout. If you are booking from outside the UK, your bank or card provider may apply a currency conversion at the point of payment. This is standard for international transactions, and any conversion fees are set by your provider rather than us. We aim to be fully transparent so you can book with confidence.

Venue — Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge

Where backcountry beauty and luxury meet

Just over an hour from Calgary, nestled deep in the pines of the Kananaskis Valley, Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge offers the perfect backdrop for this international therapist retreat. It’s a place where the pace slows, the mountains open up around you, and luxury blends effortlessly with the quiet calm of backcountry living.

This modern lodge sits in one of the most picturesque pockets of Alberta — surrounded by soaring peaks, forest trails, and that unmistakable “fresh mountain air” feeling. As soon as you arrive, you feel yourself exhale.

Modern Mountain Rooms

Your room is just steps from everything: dining, trails, meeting spaces, and quiet corners to unwind. The rooms themselves are designed to feel like a retreat within a retreat — warm, comfortable, and a little bit luxurious, bringing you into that sweet spot “where solitude meets rejuvenation.”

Kananaskis Nordic Spa (optional visit)

Just a few steps from the lodge is the famous Kananaskis Nordic Spa, set against alpine forest and rugged mountain peaks. This 50,000-sq-ft indoor/outdoor spa includes:

• five outdoor pools

• five steam & sauna cabins

• a relaxation lodge

• winter hammocks

• fireside lounges

• massage treatments

Optional spa sessions can be added during your free time — and they are truly special.

A Natural Home for Learning & Connection

The lodge is well known for hosting retreats, conferences, and professional gatherings. Our meeting space has been chosen to support focus, comfort, and connection — with a layout designed specifically for therapist workshops.

This is a venue that understands the balance between professional development and personal restoration. It’s the kind of place where deep learning feels natural, and where stepping outside between sessions feels like inhaling clarity.

Room alternatives & off-site options

We recommend staying on-site at Pomeroy to keep the shared retreat atmosphere. If you prefer to stay elsewhere or arrange your own accommodation, that’s absolutely fine – just note that the retreat fee remains the same, as it is based on the full package.

Important: Extra Nights & Travel Arrangements

Your retreat package includes three nights’ accommodation (Thursday–Sunday) at Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge.

If you would like to extend your stay either before or after the retreat, you are very welcome to do so — however, all additional nights must be booked directly with the Lodge. Simply contact their reservations team and mention that you are attending the EventWise International Therapists’ Retreat.

This ensures you can choose the exact room type and rate that works best for your travel plans.

Please note:

• EventWise NI does not manage extra-night bookings on behalf of participants.

• Airport transfers, car hire, and all personal travel arrangements are the responsibility of participants.

• We will provide helpful guidance on how to get to the Lodge, but each participant books their own transport.

This approach gives you full flexibility with your own travel schedule.

Bringing a Guest?

If you’re interested in bringing a non-participating guest, you can indicate this at the time of booking. Options and pricing will be explored once participant numbers are confirmed, and we’ll follow up in our March logistics update.

Workshop Facilitators

Dr. Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD

Dr. Robert A. Neimeyer is one of the world’s leading authorities on grief, loss, and meaning reconstruction. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Memphis and Director of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition, which provides international training in grief therapy.

Across his career, he has published 37 books and more than 600 articles and chapters, including landmark works such as New Techniques of Grief Therapy, Living Beyond Loss, and The Handbook of Grief Therapies. His contributions to the field place him among the top 0.05% of living scholars worldwide, recognised by Stanford University/Elsevier and ScholarGPS.

He has received multiple lifetime achievement awards from the International Network on Personal Meaning and the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC), and has served as Editor of Death Studies, President of ADEC, and Chair of the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement. His work continues to shape the global understanding of grief as a meaning-making process.

Dr Darcy L. Harris, RN, RSW, MEd (Couns), PhD, FT

Dr Darcy L. Harris is Professor Emeritus of Thanatology at King’s University College, Western University (Canada), where she developed one of the leading academic programs in grief, loss, and bereavement. With over 30 years of clinical experience, she specializes in issues of change, transition, and the emotional complexity surrounding grief.

Dr. Harris is known for her pioneering work in non-death loss and grief, and she has written and presented extensively on this topic. She has also integrated novel compassion and neurobiologically-based approaches, such as Compassion Focused Therapy, into therapeutic work with grieving individuals. She is a faculty member of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition, where she developed the Certification in Non-Death Loss and Grief. Dr Harris is widely recognized as an author, clinician, and educator, with numerous publications including Compassion-Based Approaches to Loss and Grief, Non-Death Loss and Grief: Context and Clinical Implications, and a seminal text for grief counseling, Principles and Practice of Grief Counseling.

Her work has been honored with multiple awards, including the Association for Death Education and Counseling Death Educator and Scholarship Recognition Awards, The Robert Fulton Center for Death Education and Bioethics Founders’ Award, and the King’s University College Excellence in Teaching Award. Her current research explores non-death loss, political grief, environmental grief, and the integration of compassion-based approaches into therapeutic practice.

Together, Bob and Darcy create a learning environment that is intellectually rich, emotionally safe, and deeply human.

Jet Lag & Early Arrival Recommendations

Jet Lag & Early Arrival

If you are travelling internationally, particularly from Europe or further afield, you may wish to arrive a day early to adjust to time zones and travel.

Please note:

• Any additional nights before or after the retreat must be booked directly with Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge or your chosen accommodation

• EventWise NI is unable to manage or coordinate extended stays or travel arrangements

• Participants arrange their own flights, transfers, and transport to/from the Lodge

We will provide clear written guidance on getting to the Lodge from Calgary International Airport (YYC).

This approach allows flexibility while keeping the retreat logistics manageable for all.

Registration & Payment

To secure your place on the retreat, full or partial payment must be made at the time of booking.

You can register in two ways:

1. Online Checkout (Recommended)

You can book directly through our website using:

• Full payment, or

• felxible payment plan via paypal

Once payment is completed online, your place is confirmed immediately.

2. Invoice Payment (Full Payment Only)

If you require an invoice (e.g. for employer reimbursement or CEU/CPD funding), we can provide one on request.

Please note:

• Invoices must be paid in full – Payment plans are not available via invoice

• Your booking is only confirmed once the invoice has been paid

• We accept international payments via Wise transfer or bank transfer

• Participants are responsible for any sender or bank fees on international transfers

What happens after you book

Once you book your place (or request an invoice), you’ll receive an automatic confirmation email.

Because the retreat is several months away, detailed logistics (including room allocations, daily schedules, optional add-ons, companion options, and activities) will be confirmed together in one clear update at the end of March 2026.

This approach allows us to keep communication streamlined and ensures everyone receives the same information at the same time.

Cancellations

We understand that circumstances can change. If you need to cancel your place:

• After booking: £150 admin fee

• Within 60 days of the retreat: £400 cancellation fee

• Within 30 days of the retreat: £850 cancellation fee

• Within 14 days of the retreat: No refunds can be offered

These fees help us meet our commitments to the venue and facilitators.

If EventWise NI must cancel the retreat for any reason, you will receive a full refund of all payments made directly to us.
However, we cannot reimburse any additional costs you may have incurred (e.g., flights, insurance, accommodation before/after the retreat).

Travel & Insurance

Participants are responsible for organising their own:

• Flights

• Airport transfers

• Travel insurance

Travel insurance is strongly recommended, especially for international travel, medical cover, cancellations, illness, or other unexpected events.

Programme Changes

While we do everything possible to deliver the retreat exactly as advertised, occasionally changes may be required due to weather, venue requirements, or unforeseen circumstances.

If adjustments are necessary:

• We will notify you as soon as possible

• We will maintain the quality, structure, and purpose of the programme

Accessibility & Participation

This retreat includes indoor workshop sessions, light movement, and optional time outdoors.

If you have:

• Accessibility needs

• Mobility considerations

• Dietary requirements

• Any health concerns

…please let us know when booking, so we can support you appropriately.

Participation in sessions is encouraged but never mandatory—you are welcome to step back when needed.

Photography & Media

We will take photos and short video clips during the retreat for future promotional use.  If you do not wish to appear in any photos or videos, please let us know at registration and we will ensure your preference is respected.

Funding & Employer Support

If you’re looking to use:

• CEU/ CPD / professional development funding

• Study leave or sabbatical

• Training budgets via your employer or organisation

—we’re happy to provide supporting documentation, including:

• A formal CEU/CPD training outline

• Learning objectives and estimated hours

• A tailored invoice or receipt format

Just let us know what you need for your context.  For those requiring Continuing Education (CE) or CPD documentation for employer or professional body approval, full CE module information is available here.

Daily Schedule: 

Contact us via email or  WhatsApp on +44 (0) 789 820 8540 for more information.

FAQ

Any Questions? Please see FAQ tab below to see if we’ve already answered them for you.

CANADA RETREAT

Don’t Take Our Word For It – Hear What Others Are Saying About Our Previous Similar Retreats…

“If you are considering attending I would say just do it! A life changing experience that I will keep and build on forever. I knew it would be good but wow I could never have imagined how good. Perfect from start to finish.” 

Diane Maddison

“This is an excellent workshop and retreat. I would highly recommend it to any therapist who needs to take time out for reflection and healing from both work and personal challenges. It really does help to generate a refreshing and safe space to recalibrate and prioritise your practice and personal life.”

Dr. Gerard Butcher

“Events that enable growth amongst therapists rather than simple training are rare, and as rare opportunities go to work with and bond with colleagues and ultimately new friends, this was exceptional.”

Dr. Michael Appleton

“An amazing opportunity to spend time with other therapists from different countries, cultures and professional backgrounds, and felt part of something very special. Really valued all being in one love in the evening, it provided space for us to be together as a group.”

Emma Blaney

“I thought the whole weekend was very well organised and each workshop built on previous ones in a very helpful way. The facilitation of a safe environment in which to share was very important. I think the fact that the attendees were all in the same accommodation really worked as we had plenty of opportunity to chat and develop friendships.  Thank you Tally and Deborah for a very inspiring few days. You both worked very hard and really looked after everyone. The retreat gave me a lot of food for thought which I will continue to use and I’m grateful for the opportunity to have participated.”

Dr. Gaye Cunnane

“The splendour of the Wild Atlantic Way, the warmth of the Irish folk and the beautiful green rolling hills of Donegal, afforded us the most special experience during the Donegal Retreat. The workshop content covering Compassionate Focus Therapy with Dr Deborah Lee was just that, compassionate yet informative, with a gentle mix of cognitive content, self- reflection and sharing, in a safe and confidential space. Coupled with interesting activities to include morning yoga on the beach, a boat trip, camp fire at night on the beach and an optional walk up to Slieve Liag, there was something to suit everyone. The attention to detail and superior quality of delivery, both from the event organiser Tally, and the lead Clinical Psychologist Dr Deborah Lee, made it special indeed, adding value and enhancing self worth, in a safe, friendly and non- judgemental environment, with like- minded people. I would highly recommend doing this retreat and look forward to going to another workshop!” 

Chantal Sargent

“This was a wonderful, nourishing and inspiring experience. It was beautifully crafted to allow for deep insights and meaningful connection, and provided sustenance both for clinical practice and personal meaning. Deborah is not only an incredible teacher, but held and supported the group, and we were all in turn supported by Tally who felt like an integral part. Highly recommended.

Hannah Gilbert