We Registered the Study. Grief Map is Coming!

Apr 27, 2026

REWIRED360

The Grief Map Research

Pilot Study

OSF Preregistration Filed · April 27, 2026 · Data Collection Begins May 21, 2026

The Grief Map · Pilot Study Update

We Registered the Study.

Here's What That Means for EMDR Therapists Who Work with Grief.

Today the Grief Map became a preregistered study. Before a single clinician sits in a training room. Before a single data point is collected. The research questions, the instruments, the analysis plan — locked, timestamped, and publicly filed on OSF.

If you are an EMDR therapist who works with grieving clients, you have probably felt it: the moment when you have done everything right and the processing still doesn't move. The target is correct. The protocol is correct. And something is still stuck. The Grief Map framework was built in response to that moment. Not because the target was wrong — but because the map to the target was missing.

“Grievers carry their loss across ten dimensions. Standard assessment captures the presenting symptom. The Grief Map captures the architecture.”

What We Are Actually Studying

The Grief Map Pilot Study is a multi-cohort, single-group repeated measures design. Participants are licensed mental health clinicians who have completed EMDR training. The training is structured in two phases: a 13-hour initial training followed, eight weeks later, by a 3-hour implementation session. A 30-day follow-up measures what clinicians actually do in the room.

We are not trying to prove the Grief Map works. This is a pilot study. We are generating preliminary evidence of what changes when clinicians learn to assess grief dimensionally — in their confidence, their knowledge, their behavior, and their clinical identity. The founding cohort launches May 21, 2026.

Five Research Questions

All five use observational language. No directional hypotheses. We are watching what happens.

RQ1 — Dimensional Target Identification

What changes are observed in clinicians’ confidence in conducting systematic dimensional grief assessment to locate the stuck EMDR target using the Grief Map framework?

RQ2 — Adaptive vs. Frozen Yearning / PGD

What changes are observed in clinicians’ confidence distinguishing adaptive from frozen yearning and applying DSM-5-TR Prolonged Grief Disorder criteria?

RQ3 — Behavioral Transfer at 30 Days

What Grief Map tools do clinicians report applying in clinical practice within 30 days — across the 8-week clinical window between sessions?

RQ4 — Relational Field and Polyvagal Co-regulation

What changes are observed in clinicians’ confidence applying polyvagal co-regulation concepts within the Grief Map framework’s relational field approach?

RQ5 — Identity Disruption as Complicated Grief Threshold

What changes are observed in clinicians’ confidence identifying identity-level disruption as the threshold variable distinguishing normative grief from complicated presentations?

Five Original Instruments

All five instruments are original to the Grief Map framework and proposed for future psychometric validation.

AYS	Adaptive Yearning Scale 15 items · Oscillation, Window of Tolerance, and Integration subscales · Directly operationalizes the Adaptive Yearning Model

DGS	Dimensional Grief Scan 10 dimensions · Clinician-administered · Identifies which grief dimensions are clinically load-bearing prior to EMDR target selection

AWDI	Assumptive World Disruption Index 20 items · 5 subscales · Bridges Neimeyer’s assumptive world theory with EMDR negative cognition mapping

GIDS	Grief Identity Disruption Scale 15 items · 4 subscales · Measures identity-level disruption as the threshold between normative and complicated grief

RGFI	Relational Grief Field Inventory 20 items · 4 subscales · Clinician self-assessment · Grounded in the Two-Brain Room relational field framework

Why Preregistration Matters

OSF preregistration means that the research questions, analysis plan, instruments, and methodology are publicly filed before data collection begins. The timestamp is permanent. It cannot be altered after the fact.

This matters because the principal investigator is also the developer of the framework being studied. Preregistration is one of the most important tools available for protecting research integrity in that situation — and it is exactly the kind of transparency that makes pilot findings credible enough to build on.

On the Record

The Grief Map study was filed April 27, 2026. Data collection begins May 21, 2026. The registration is public on the Open Science Framework under the title: The Grief Map Framework: A Dimensional Approach to Clinical Grief Assessment in EMDR.

How We Got Here

This study did not emerge from a university lab or a funded research team. It emerged from clinical practice — from sitting with grievers who were not getting better inside frameworks that were not designed for them.

The Adaptive Yearning Model came first — the theoretical proposition that yearning is not a symptom to extinguish but a neurobiologically organized, adaptive response to loss. From that, the Grief Map took shape: an integration architecture linking the grief domain taxonomy of the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) with EMDR therapy’s eight-phase protocol.

The white paper was written. Five original assessment instruments were designed. The trademark for The Grief Map was filed March 27, 2026. The Evaluation Plan was written and locked across 55 documented decision rationale entries — every methodological choice recorded with a date, a rationale, and a status. And on April 27, 2026, the study was registered.

“The prize is the data. Everything else follows from that.”

Are You an EMDR Therapist Working with Grief?

The Grief Map training series is open to licensed clinicians who have completed EMDR training. Future cohorts are forming now.

Learn More at Rewired360

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