Online Grief Therapy

I recently took a training course: The Ultimate Grief Treatment Toolbox: Over 60 Interventions to Promote Healing & Hope Among Grieving Children, Adolescents & Adults to become a Certified Grief Informed Professional. I wanted to share a few thoughts I had about the training and grief therapy.  

While we often consider grief related to death, I believe we grief many non-deaths throughout our lives. We grieve the loss of our childhood and the loss of the relationship with our parents as parents and child. We grieve the loss of jobs, romantic relationships, friends, abilities and health. 

Secondary loss can be as impactful or more than the primary loss (death).  Secondary losses include the loss of financial security, the loss of social connections connected with the loved one, the loss of identity associated with the relationship (being a spouse, parent, child). 

Grief, like many aspects of life and mental health, involves a duality which can feel uncomfortable at times. A grieving client may feel guilty about having a moment of levity while coping with grief or shame about forgetting about the loss for a moment. Grief therapy can help with psychoeducation on the duality of grief and how clients can start to invite that duality into their lives.  Reconciliation helps clients understand how to hold the grief while also continuing to invite meaning and hope into their lives. 

Grief therapy is often more about education and holding space than interventions and treatment. An important part of grief therapy is psychoeducation and normalization of the grief process. While the stages of grief can be helpful, it is important to ensure clients understand there is no timeline, order or standards for grief.  Grief therapy can encourage people to ‘move out inside feelings to the outside’ which helps process the grief.  Grief therapy can provide a place for people to be free of social constraints and expectations regarding grief. Additionally, grief therapists will offer suggestions and ideas of ways clients can process their grief that feels comfortable. 

Interested in online grief therapy? Please outreach today for a free phone consultation.