Grief Counseling

Grief can profoundly impact every aspect of your life.

There are the waves of sadness. Feelings of isolation and disconnection. The belief that it will be impossible to move on after a loss so significant. Grief symptoms look different from person to person, but for the most part, the experience is characterized by intense emotions and thoughts that make it difficult to do your job, calm stress, and simply go about your day. It’s easy to become so preoccupied with your loss—replaying memories, questioning past decisions, or imagining “what if” scenarios—that you have energy or motivation left for anything else. Yet the more you try to push away these feelings, the more powerful they may become.

As impossible as it feels right now, you can get through this period and even learn to integrate your experience with grief and loss into your life moving forward. Grief counseling can guide you through this process. At Therapy for Women Center in Philadelphia, our mission is to help you gradually process your emotions so that you can feel more empowered and stop letting grief get in the way of living your life.

Grief is one of the most universal yet misunderstood human experiences.

Grief is a natural response to loss, but few people actually realize how profound and long-lasting its effects can be. For many, there’s an expectation that grief should follow a predictable pattern, timeline, or phases. You may have heard phrases like, “It’s been six months, shouldn’t you be over it by now?”

While feeling sad after a loss is universally recognized, grief is so much more than that. Grief can come along with a flurry of other emotions like anger, guilt, anxiety, and even moments of relief. There’s coping with a loss or change in identity and coming to terms with life unfolding in a way you never planned or could control. The spectrum of grief-related experiences is far and wide, yet women have often been taught to let go and move on rather than get the support they need to heal.

A therapist who specializes in grief counseling can help you understand your own grieving process and help you learn the ways in which you could use extra support, providing insight and tools along the way. And once you have a better understanding of your grief journey, navigating it becomes much easier. Click here to schedule an appointment with one of our grief specialists.

Our approach to grief therapy:

We draw from several evidence-based therapeutic modalities to provide comprehensive grief counseling:

1. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: This approach can be particularly helpful in processing traumatic aspects of loss and alleviating symptoms of complicated grief.
2. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): ACT can help you learn to accept painful emotions and thoughts related to your loss while committing to actions that align with your values and goals.
3. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): DBT skills can be valuable in managing intense emotions, improving relationships, and building resilience during the grieving process.
4. Internal Family Systems (IFS):  IFS can help you identify and work with the different parts of yourself that are struggling with loss. For example, one part might be overwhelmed with sadness, while another might feel guilty for moving on. IFS allows clients to acknowledge and honor these various aspects of their grief experience, fostering self-compassion and healing.

Throughout your grief journey, we’ll work together to help you process your loss in way that feels validating and meaningful, while helping you develop the coping strategies you need to get through it. We’ll guide you in finding ways to honor your loved one’s memory and integrate your loss into your life story. We’ll support you in reconnecting with others and rebuilding a sense of meaning and purpose. Our goal isn’t to “fix” your grief or make you forget your loss, but to help you find ways to carry your loved one with you as you move forward. We want to empower you to navigate your grief journey with self-compassion and resilience, gradually rediscovering joy and hope for the future.