Grief & Loss

It has been said that grief is love with no place to go. I draw on years of experience caring for both adults and children in hospice to help you relocate that love.

Adult Grief

As a beloved mentor once taught me, “each person’ s grief is like all other people’s grief; like some other people’s grief; and like no other person’s grief.” Learning about common experiences in grief or joining a grief group may be excellent ways to decrease the loneliness and stigma that grieving people feel. At other times, individual grief counseling can be invaluable in processing how an individual loss has affected you, or an instance that has brought up long-unresolved grief from the past. The goal of grief counseling is not to rid you of your grief, but to support you in your ability to carry it.

Childhood Grief

With children, grief can look like sudden anger outbursts, meltdowns, separation anxiety, developmental regression, school refusal, and a whole host of other things. These changes are often bewildering to parents or caregivers, who may also be in the fresh throes of grief themselves. In grief counseling and in grief groups, we work in four different areas to process the loss:

  1. Understanding the nature of the loss and death, including clarifying misconceptions. Learning about the grieving process and its far-reaching effects in our lives.

  2. Feeling the intensity of emotions, holding space for ambivalent emotions, and working through avoidance of pain.

  3. Memory work; both recalling positive memories and including dealing with traumatic or intense memories.

  4. Living with changed perspectives in a changed world, including dealing with questions like, what did this person’s life and death mean for me? How am I different because of it? What will I do in light of that difference?

Preschool Grief

I love, love, love young children. Over years of experience, I have learned that the most effective way of supporting most young children through their grief is supporting and educating their caregivers. Common “problems” in preschool grief are developmental regressions, frequent outbursts and meltdowns, separation anxiety, etc. A short course of parent/caregiver coaching sessions focuses on problem-solving, resource-building, education, and troubleshooting and can work wonders in giving you the confidence you need in managing your child’s (and your own) grief. Please contact me for more details!

I also frequently recommend (and helped develop!) these cards from the National Alliance for Children’s Grief as a resource to any adult working with a grieving child.