Grief & Loss Counseling
Compassionate, Trauma-Informed Support for Healing After Loss
Grief is a natural response to loss—but it can feel overwhelming, confusing, and isolating. Whether you’re grieving the death of a loved one or a non-death loss such as divorce, illness, betrayal, infertility, or identity changes, grief counseling offers a supportive space to process what you’ve been carrying.
There is no right way to grieve. There is only your way.
Types of Grief
Grief can take many forms, and recognizing the type of grief you’re experiencing can help guide healing.
Acute (Early) Grief: Intense sadness, shock, longing, and emotional waves common after a recent loss.
Anticipatory Grief: Grief that begins before a loss, often during serious illness or decline.
Complicated or Prolonged Grief: Grief that remains intense and disruptive over time, interfering with daily life.
Disenfranchised Grief: Losses that aren’t openly acknowledged or supported, such as miscarriage, estrangement, abortion, or non-death losses.
Secondary Loss Grief: Grief connected to additional losses—identity, health, safety, routines, or future plans.
Grief vs. Traumatic Grief
All grief is painful—but traumatic grief involves the nervous system becoming overwhelmed by the loss or how the loss occurred.
Grief often includes:
Sadness and longing
Emotional waves that come and go
Painful but tolerable memories
Gradual adjustment over time
Traumatic grief may include:
Intrusive memories or images
Panic, anxiety, or emotional flooding
Numbness, avoidance, or dissociation
Feeling frozen, stuck, or unsafe
Traumatic grief commonly follows sudden loss, medical trauma, violence, suicide, betrayal, or losses layered on prior trauma.
How EMDR Helps With Grief and Loss
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a trauma-informed therapy that helps the brain and body process painful memories connected to loss—especially when grief feels overwhelming, stuck, or traumatic.
EMDR does not take away love or memories. It helps your nervous system feel safe enough to carry them.
EMDR for Grief Can Help With:
Intrusive memories or images related to the loss
Sudden waves of grief, panic, or emotional flooding
Guilt, regret, or “what if” thoughts
Trauma responses after sudden or traumatic loss
Feeling frozen, numb, or unable to move forward
Through bilateral stimulation, EMDR helps distressing memories become less emotionally charged so grief feels more manageable over time.
Trauma-Informed Grief Therapy
Grief counseling here is gentle, collaborative, and paced to your nervous system. EMDR and somatic approaches are used thoughtfully—only when appropriate—to support integration, not force closure.
Healing doesn’t mean forgetting. It means remembering without being overwhelmed.
Ready for Support?
If your grief feels heavy, stuck, or tangled with trauma, you don’t have to navigate it alone.
Contact us today to schedule a consultation and learn whether grief and loss counseling—or EMDR for grief—may be a good fit for you.