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Grief Therapy

Are You Struggling With The Impact Of Grief Or Loss?

Has the difficult loss of someone or something overtaken your life, leaving you unable to cope, function, or otherwise move forward? Have you recently experienced:

  • The death or anticipated death of a loved one?
  • A divorce or the loss of a romantic relationship?
  • The end of a friendship or loss of a social circle?
  • The loss of a home, a job, or financial stability? 

 

Maybe you have been navigating the grieving process quietly on your own, simply waiting for things to get easier, to no avail. Or perhaps you have been actively feeling like the pain will never end and that your life will never get back on track. 

Grief Takes A Toll On You Physically, Mentally, and Emotionally

You may find yourself regularly going through an emotional roller coaster, shifting between various feelings of shock, disbelief, anger, sadness, loneliness, guilt, fear, frustration, or irritability. You may have also experienced certain physical symptoms, such as fatigue, lethargy, insomnia, nausea, lowered immunity, weight loss or gain, or bodily aches and pains. Socially, you may have noticed an uncharacteristic withdrawal from friends and family. 

Although you may feel alone right now, though, our compassionate therapists understand and want you to know that through supportive, effective counseling you can navigate the grieving process with strength and resilience. Grief counseling with Center For Resiliency can help you come to terms with your loss so that you can move forward with clarity and peace.

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Everyone Experiences Grief Or Loss At Some Point

Unfortunately, the experience of grief is inevitable in life and will affect every one of us along the way. This is true of obviously difficult forms of loss such as the death of a loved one, which is considered one of the most stressful life events (1).  But grief also applies to other types of “ambiguous losses,” such as the loss of a dream, that can nonetheless hugely impact our lives. 

Shockingly, over eight percent of children in the U.S. experience the death of a parent or sibling by the age of 18, with the number more than doubling by age 25 (2). In addition, more than 57 percent of American adults reported a major loss within the last three years (3).

Dealing With Grief By Yourself Can Lengthen And Worsen The Pain

Facing grief alone can lead to depression, anxiety, and negative coping mechanisms that can easily make things even worse. The lack of support can deepen feelings of loneliness, isolation, and alienation. And grieving alone means not having the space to healthily explore and express your emotions, which can cause them to reemerge in unhealthy ways later on.

With the help of an empathetic and engaged grief counselor, however, you can find that outlet and process your pain in a way that honors your loss without negatively identifying with it. At Center For Resiliency, we provide grief therapy and support to help you find the strength and perspective needed for you to heal and reclaim your life again.

(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/

(2) https://www.childrensgriefawarenessday.org/

(3) https://www.eterneva.com/resources/coping

Grief Counseling Can Help You Move Forward With Your Life

When you are in the middle of mourning a significant loss, it can be easy to feel as though the pain will never stop and that you will never be able to continue on. But grief and loss counseling can offer you exactly the type of external support that you need during this trying time. 

Counseling can not only allow you to feel less alone in your grieving process—it can actually both lessen the intensity and shorten the duration of your grief by giving you a place to express painful thoughts and feelings. By working through these difficult emotions, you can integrate the meaning of your loss into a brighter future for yourself.

What You Can Expect From Grief Therapy Sessions

Before beginning therapy sessions, you will provide information to your grief counselor about your history and the specifics of the loss that you are struggling with. This will help your therapist understand your unique type of grief and how best to approach it with care. 

During your actual therapy sessions, you will move through the “four tasks of mourning” with your counselor. These include: accepting the reality of the loss; processing the pain and the emotions of the grief; adjusting to your new life without the loss; and finding an enduring connection with the lost person, object, or idea—while reinvesting in your “new” life.

Therapeutic Approaches To Help You Heal

Your grief counselor will incorporate multiple treatment methods to address your symptoms, including: 

 

  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) – CBT works to identify and change unhealthy thoughts, feelings, and behaviors related to your grief or loss.  

 

  • Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy (SIFS) – Somatic IFS allows you to better understand and integrate the different parts of yourself in dealing with grief.

 

  • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR) – EMDR helps you to reprocess negative or traumatic memories that often accompany grief.

 

  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) – ACT enables you to feel and accept the negative thoughts or emotions involved in grief without judging them.

 

Through a combination of these therapeutic practices, you will work with your grief counselor to navigate the grieving process while learning how to better care for yourself mentally and emotionally in the time ahead. It will be a process, but we will work together to keep that process as gentle and manageable as possible. 

Contrary to popular belief, grief does not necessarily occur in stages; grief is more like an ongoing roller coaster of emotions. And although there will be highs and lows along the way, with your grief therapist by your side, you can work to maximize the highs and minimize the lows as you heal your grieving heart, mind, and soul.

You may still have questions about Grief Counseling

Won’t time eventually heal my grief anyway?

People are generally resilient and time does tend to help the healing process. But grief therapy aims not to help someone feel less sad but rather less tortured. There exists a vital difference between pain and suffering. We cannot eliminate the pain that comes with loss, nor is that even our goal. But often with grief comes unnecessary suffering as well—in the form of regret, guilt, and self-blame. Grief counseling can help end the suffering while lessening the pain.

I already have a therapist that I talk to about my loss.

Great! Grief education is not only lacking among the general population but also among therapists. There are few times when the word “grief” even gets uttered in a graduate classroom, which can leave even the most seasoned therapists feeling helpless unless they specialize in the treatment of grief like ours do. In addition, working with one of our grief therapists can help supplement other therapy you are receiving until your grief subsides.

There is no solution to my problem, so why go to therapy?

Although there may not be a solution to what you are experiencing, counseling can still help you find valuable perspective and peace in your grief and loss. For example, therapy can help individuals with chronic or terminal illnesses live the dignified life that they deserve to live—one that is focused not on anticipating death but on making the most of the time that they have left in life. In any case, therapy means that you will feel supported and cared for in your grieving process, no matter what you are going through.