GRIEF THERAPY
Is Grief Making Your Life Harder To Navigate?
Are you having difficulty coping with the loss of a loved one or other major life upheaval, such as a divorce, job loss, retirement, caretaking elderly parents, or chronic illness? Do emotions overwhelm you when you least expect it or make you dread upcoming occasions that remind you of your loved one? Is it hard for you to express your feelings to others, leading to further isolation and loneliness?
Perhaps experiencing loss has shifted your sense of self and caused you to grapple with complicated emotions in addition to sadness, such as anger, guilt, self-blame, and regret. Or maybe you often feel numb or detached about what’s happened because acknowledging the reality is simply too painful.
You May Struggle To Cope With The New Normal
As much as you may try to go on with life, you might be dealing with a range of emotional, physical, and behavioral symptoms, including:
Intense or complicated emotions;
Difficulty concentrating at work;
Withdrawal from activities, friends, and normal routines;
Disruptions in appetite and sleeping patterns;
Physical symptoms, such as lethargy, body aches, and stomach upset.
You may have difficulty accepting your loss and feel like you can’t move on. Or maybe you have mixed feelings about your loved which can intensify your grief and cause guilt and remorse to fester. And because we all grieve differently you may feel out of step with others in your family or friend group.
Fortunately, grief counseling can help you process your emotions and develop healthier ways to remember your loved one. Your counselor can also help you work through the complicated emotions associated with grief and identify coping strategies to handle loss.
Grief Is Rarely The Experience We Expect It To Be
Loss comes in many forms, such as the death of a loved one, divorce, job termination, natural disasters, or neonatal loss. Despite grief being a universal experience that affects us all sooner or later when it happens, we don’t know what to expect.
We may assume that how we grieve will be akin to the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—however, following this linear progression is rarely, if ever, the case. Instead, we find that grief comes and goes mysteriously, bringing up a range of emotions that go well beyond sadness. We may be confused or alarmed by how we feel, making us wonder if we’re “doing it” correctly or if something is wrong with us.
We All Experience Grief Differently
The truth is, that grief is an everchanging process that won’t look the same for everyone. Although the pain of loss will gradually fade over time, that doesn’t mean that we wake up one morning feeling completely healed. Loss has a profound impact, changing who we are fundamentally.
For many, grief can be compounded when we lack adequate social support from friends or family or feel pressure to move on from our loss before we feel ready to. Additionally, we may struggle with complicated family dynamics or financial stress due to the death of a loved one which may exacerbate the grieving process, making it harder to cope.
Fortunately, grief counseling provides a safe, dedicated space to process emotions, develop coping mechanisms, gain insights into behaviors, and receive professional guidance. Working with a grief therapist can be crucial for managing mental health challenges that are uniquely associated with bereavement.
Receiving Compassionate Support In Grief Counseling Can Help You Through Bereavement
When you are grieving, sometimes it’s hard to share the complicated emotions you are experiencing with others. You may find that friends or loved ones expect you to have processed what happened when you are still struggling to restore your sense of self after suffering a devastating loss. Bereavement counseling gives you permission to experience whatever you’re feeling without judgment or being rushed along.
Therapy will help normalize grief, dispelling the notion that there is a right and wrong way to feel at any given moment. We often tell our clients that grief is like a bowl of spaghetti—the only way to get through it is one noodle at a time.
What To Expect In Sessions
In grief therapy, your counselor will help you explore the full spectrum of emotions related to your loss, including sadness, anger, guilt—and even relief—allowing you to process these feelings in a healthier way. Grieving counseling will help you better understand your relationship with your loved one, come to terms with the circumstances of their death, and develop coping strategies to manage grief in daily life. This may include techniques to deal with tough milestones such as holidays, anniversaries, or birthdays.
Your grief journey may be especially challenging if you were estranged from your loved one or had a troubled relationship before they passed. Grief therapy allows you to unpack the complicated emotions related to your loss and address feelings of anger, regret, or guilt you may be experiencing. And if your loss is associated with another life event, such as divorce, job loss, or catastrophe, we can help you cope and move toward healing.
We Utilize Effective Approaches To Address Grief
Our practice is staffed with a team of therapists well-trained in grief and loss counseling modalities, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), interpersonal therapy, Family Focused Grief Therapy (FFGT), and visual arts therapy.
ACT acknowledges that everyone deals with grief differently and that it can hit in different ways at different times. By helping you accept and normalize your thoughts and feelings, ACT provides a road map for how to move through grief with more awareness, defining what your values are to ensure you align with them. We may also incorporate Trauma-Focused CBT (TF-CBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) to tackle the physiological symptoms and disturbing memories associated with traumatic loss.
At Prospering Hope, we acknowledge that this is your experience and no one else's—you are allowed to feel exactly what you are feeling. Although you will never get over your loss, grief counseling can help you get through it.
But Maybe You’re Not Sure If Grief Counseling Is Right For You…
My heart is broken and no amount of therapy can fix that.
It's understandable to doubt whether grief therapy can help you, especially if you’ve recently lost a life partner, child, or other significant loved one. But trying to process your grief without adequate emotional support can lead to long-term mental health setbacks, like anxiety and depression. Grief counseling offers the tools to cope with loss. It’s worth opening yourself up to bereavement support when you need it.
Will my counselor have experience with grief and loss?
At Prospering Hope, our therapists are trained in effective modalities for coping with grief and other forms of loss, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Complicated Grief Therapy, and Family Focused Grief Therapy (FFGT). These effective approaches to grief counseling can help you better process your loss and equip you with the tools to handle emotional setbacks, like birthdays or anniversaries, more effectively.
How long will grief therapy take before I feel better?
Unfortunately, when it comes to grief, there are no shortcuts. However, without a safe space to process your emotions, the grieving process can be prolonged and more painful than it has to be. While we can't guarantee a 'quick fix' to bereavement, counseling provides compassionate support to ease the grieving process. Your therapist will listen and work with you closely, helping you explore different strategies to help you process grief more effectively.
Grief Counseling Offers Support When You Need It Most
As grief and bereavement counselors, we can encourage, and guide you with compassionate expertise. For a free 15-minute consultation to find out more about Prospering Hope’s in-person and online grief therapy or to schedule an appointment, please call us at 832-856-1807 or visit our contact page.
Recent Posts
