Heather Stang Receives ADEC’s 2025 Scientific Follow Award for Innovation in Grief Help

Frederick, MD  — The Affiliation for Dying Schooling and Counseling (ADEC) has named Heather Stang, MA, C-IAYT, because the recipient of the 2025 Scientific Follow Award, honoring her excellent contributions to the sector of thanatology via progressive, evidence-informed grief help. The award was introduced at ADEC’s annual convention by colleague and former professor Rebecca Morse.

Previous recipients of ADEC’s Scientific Follow Award embrace lots of the area’s most influential voices, comparable to Dr. J. William Worden, whose 4 Duties of Mourning stay foundational in grief counseling; Dr. Therese Rando, identified for her work on anticipatory and complex grief; Dame Cicely Saunders, founding father of the trendy hospice motion; and Dr. Robert A. Neimeyer, whose which means reconstruction mannequin has reshaped our understanding of grief adaptation. To be counted amongst such firm highlights not solely Stang’s scientific innovation, however her place in a legacy of advancing compassionate, evidence-based grief help.

Heather Stang is widely known for creating the Mindfulness & Grief System, an eight-step framework that integrates meditation, conscious motion, journaling, and self-compassion with foundational theories in thanatology. Her work has been instrumental in making advanced grief fashions accessible to each professionals and the grieving public, significantly via her three revealed books: Dwelling With Grief (previously Mindfulness & Grief), From Grief to Peace, and Navigating Loss.

What distinguishes Stang’s scientific observe is her skill to synthesize rising psychological analysis with embodied practices rooted in trauma-informed yoga remedy. Her strategy is knowledgeable by the theoretical contributions of Dr. William Worden (4 Duties of Mourning), Dr. Robert Neimeyer (which means reconstruction), and Dr. Ken Doka (disenfranchised grief), alongside the lived experiences of the shoppers and communities she helps.

Stang’s most up-to-date guide, Navigating Loss, was impressed by her private experiences with estrangement and divorce throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The guide supplies sensible instruments for adapting to invisible and sometimes disenfranchised grief via reflective prompts, mindfulness, and somatic self-care. Navigating Loss attracts closely from the groundbreaking scholarship of Dr. Darcy Harris on non-death loss, whose work helped Stang articulate the often-invisible grief skilled by these dealing with ambiguous and disenfranchised losses. Dr. Harris was additionally acknowledged this yr with ADEC’s 2025 Scholarship Award, honoring her important scholarly contributions to the sector. 

Along with her writing and particular person consumer work, Stang facilitates Awaken, an on-line mindfulness-based grief help program that features weekly meditation and journaling periods, yoga for grief, and themed lessons. She additionally supplies particular person grief counseling, and  skilled coaching for hospice and palliative care suppliers, therapists, and different grief-adjacent professionals—with a deal with burnout prevention and trauma-sensitive care.

“ADEC has been my skilled dwelling for over a decade,” Stang mentioned. “To obtain this award from a neighborhood that has supported and formed my work is an unimaginable honor. I’m particularly grateful for the visionaries on this area who’ve proven me the way to merge lived expertise with sensible, evidence-based knowledge.”

Heather Stang holds a Grasp’s in Thanatology from Hood Faculty and is a Licensed Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT). Her scientific observe continues to evolve with a deal with integrating attachment principle and nervous system regulation to help each grieving people and the professionals who serve them.

PREVIOUS ADEC CLINICAL PRACTICE AWARD RECIPIENTS

1989 Pleasure Ufema
1990 J. Quint Benoliel
1991 Catherine Sanders
1992 Beverly Raphael
1993 J. William Worden
1994 John S. Stephenson
1995 Dana G. Cable
1996 Therese A. Rando
1997 Dame Cicely Saunders
1998 Stephen Fleming
1999 Helen Fitzgerald
2000 Patricia Murphy
2001 Sr. Francis Dominica
2003 Linda Goldman
2004 Nancy Boyd Webb
2005 Janice Winchester Nadeau
2006 Joan Monaghan
2007 Lula Moshoures Redmond
2008 Louis Gamino
2009 Robert A. Neimeyer
2011 Cecilia L. W. Chan
2013 Donna Schuurman
2015 M. Katherine Shear
2016 Bonnie Carroll
2017 Howard R. Winokeur
2018 Richard A. Pessagno
2019 Amy Rath
2020 Colleen Cherry
2024 Phyllis Kosminsky
2025 Darrell Owens and Heather Stang