Grief Counseling
There is a lot of grief in losing our normal life and routines. Add to our grief of losing a loved one and it's even harder. The first three months after a loved one dies, we often experience shock and fog. This is the mind’s way of protecting us for a while. Often clients are experiencing somatic symptoms like heart pain, headaches or shortness of breath. Grief cycles daily, giving us good days and bad days. If you are in the throes of grief, you might have trouble sleeping, eating and you might be excessively worrying. When a loved one dies it tends to change everything in our life and we see things differently. We notice if others seem genuine or not in their sympathy. We get annoyed by the clichés that people offer us. We can rage at God. It’s a lot to take in and experience. Grief and loss counseling helps. I offer pet grief counseling as well.
Is your grief holding you back from moving forward with your life and your relationships? If you could just talk to someone about your feelings, your fears and your beliefs, you think, maybe it would help. It is tough getting what you need from your family and friends because they often have a story about the person who died and about how you should feel. Counseling serves the grieving person because you have an objective person listening to your story who has no bias on how you’re supposed to feel and no bias around the person who died. Your time together is confidential and private. It is the place to go to when, what you have now, is not working. A typical day for you might revolve around obsessive thoughts about your loved one, intense guilt, extreme anguish, numbness and crying. You are trying to live your day to day life while at the same time navigating your grief and it’s just not working. Our culture does not prepare us with how to deal with our grief, and our loved ones often want us to stop talking about it. It’s hard. We need operating instructions.
What are the three most common fears about seeking grief counseling?
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Time commitment. Like any successful relationship, commitment to your weekly counseling sessions is necessary. Without showing up consistently each week, how can you make progress? When you understand that a profound relationship with your counselor is necessary to the successful outcome of your therapy, it will make it easier to commit to your weekly session. We can talk about this in our sessions.
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Economic commitment. Where we spend our money says a lot about who we are and what goals we hope to achieve. Six months of weekly grief counseling adds up to approximately $2,400.00. In the great arc of our lives, we have spent that amount many times on vacations, conferences and seminars and education. Therapy built on a strong therapeutic alliance, empathy and compassion, continues long after the actual sessions wrap up. You internalize what you’ve learned and carry it with you for the rest of your life. This is an investment in your health and well-being for the long term.
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Former bad experiences in therapy. Sometimes you’ve gone to therapy and had a less than successful experience. That hurts. Maybe you’re afraid that might happen again. I come from an analytical psychology and psychodynamic approach. What this means is I take my role as counselor very seriously, with all of the ethical guidelines and rules this entails. I have a lot of life experience as well as current, cutting edge training. As we collaborate on processing your grief together, I will always to check in with you to make sure you feel understood and seen in the therapeutic relationship.
I offer a free phone consult (15-30 minutes) to answer any questions you have about specific needs and questions about my practice.
