We talked about grief, and it changed how we think about it.

What we covered

• Kat's path from 17 years as a professional dancer to a chance hospice tour that redirected her whole career.
• Why the popular five-stages model of grief is outdated, and what she teaches instead.
• Three grief concepts most people have never heard of: continuing bonds, disenfranchised grief, and ambiguous loss.
• How a fully telehealth private practice lets her treat healthcare workers across six states, including at 6am and 9pm.
• Her honest, unresolved stance on AI in her practice — where she's open, and where HIPAA keeps her cautious.
• Where to find real grief resources, starting with your local hospice.

Moments worth your time

Kat's origin story turns on a single unglamorous moment at a Trader Joe's freezer: "I really didn't want to stock any more fish. So I was like, okay, yeah, I'll totally take a tour." That tour became a career.

She reframes what grief actually is with an image she uses in her own teaching: "when you grieve, it's like somebody hands you a bag of rocks... the work of grief is learning how to live with it and take it forward with you, instead of getting over it."

Asked about AI directly, she doesn't perform certainty she doesn't have: "I'm just a little wary about AI because of HIPAA and I want to make sure I'm protecting my client's privacy and I just don't know how AIs are trained."

She names her proudest professional work, and it isn't a session — it's a classroom: "giving my students language to take out into wherever they practice... to help their clients feel less alone."

In their words

"If you're new to grief and you feel completely overwhelmed, I want you to know that you are not crazy."

"Death ends a life, not a relationship."

"I would still be wary of using those tools, but I am glad for the people that they're helpful for."

Who should watch this

You're a therapist, counselor, or practice owner who wants to bring AI into your workflow eventually but won't move until you understand the privacy question first. You're also the right audience if you're personally grieving and have never had anyone hand you language like "disenfranchised grief" or "ambiguous loss" for what you're carrying.

Put it to work

Take fifteen minutes and write down the one workflow in your practice where you're most tempted to use an AI tool — scheduling, transcription, note summaries, intake. Now write, in one sentence each: what data would that tool touch, and what would you need to know about how it's trained and stored before you'd trust it with a client's information. If you can't answer both sentences confidently right now, that's not a failure — it's exactly the gap Kat names when she says she's "wary... because of HIPAA."

If that gap is the thing standing between you and using AI with real confidence, our free master class walks through how to evaluate a tool for privacy and compliance before you ever build with it — no card, no commitment, just the groundwork Kat is describing she still wants for herself.