Can Grief Counseling Really Help? What It Is And How It Works

By Julia Thomas

Updated August 16, 2019

Reviewer Martha Furman, LPC, CAC

Grief is a powerful emotion. After losing someone you love, the sadness can feel crushing. Humans are social creatures, and the bonds we make with others are strong and meaningful. The loss of a loved one is undoubtedly one of the most difficult hardships we'll endure in life, but it's possible to move forward. If you're willing to take the necessary steps, you can rediscover a life full of joy.

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What Can Grief Counseling Do for Me?

Grief counseling is a perfect way to reawaken the meaning in your life after losing someone close. A grief counselor is a specially trained professional dedicated to helping people experiencing loss.

Many people shy away from grief therapy because the sadness felt at the loss of a loved one seems a natural expression-and it is. But this type of therapy is specifically designed to help you process your emotions in a way that makes the most sense to you, and can help you honor the memory and joy of your loved one while you progress forward with your own life. In grief counseling, you might identify and deal with trauma, learn to express your emotions, and learn how to come to terms with the loss. We'll go deeper about what to expect from grief counseling later in the article.

The Truth about Grief Counseling

All too often, when considering therapy, we imagine the TV cliché of uncomfortable couches and scratching pens. But the truth is, many people who receive grief counseling report reduced long-term depression. Additionally, grief therapy can put you more in touch with your emotions, which will transfer into many other parts in your life.

If you want to be a part of the millions of people that have gained peace from grief counseling, you must take the first step. You owe it to yourself to do everything you can to get that happiness you deserve. It's important to note that grief counseling can be a powerful tool, but it won't solve every problem. Although your time in grief counseling may have far-reaching effects, there are certain things it should never do.

• It won't make you forget the deceased.
• It won't allow you to bypass the pain of loss.
• It won't change the core of who you are.

Grief counseling is a type of therapy designed to help people who have experienced a loss, usually in the recent past. Grief counselors study the stages of grief and learn techniques for helping people move through each stage in healthy ways. There are several goals of grief counseling.

Accepting the Reality of the Loss. Grief doesn't always hit you like a ton of bricks. Sometimes you feel nothing after a major loss. You may go on as if nothing has happened. Even if you're overwhelmed by emotion, you may feel disconnected from the source of those feelings. So, the first task of grieving, and thus the first goal of grief counseling, is to help you understand with all your being that you've suffered a major loss.

Identifying and Dealing with Trauma. Before you can get to the grief process, your counselor needs to help you identify the parts of your experience that were traumatic. These may include witnessing the death, seeing the dead body, or other experiences surrounding your loved one's death. Once you know what those experiences are, you can describe them, discuss them, and your grief counselor can help you move past them and onto the task of grieving.

Talking Freely about Your Loved One. If you don't have anyone to share your grief with, a grief counselor can provide an outlet for you. Or, if you're grieving in a fishbowl with friends and family judging your every move, you may need someone like your counselor with whom you can share your personal feelings without the worry of saying the wrong thing. Expressing your thoughts and feelings about your relationship with your loved one can be a tremendous relief.

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Experiencing and Expressing Emotions. Perhaps you haven't yet felt the sting of the loss you've just experienced. Some people can go months or even years before they experience their feelings about the loss. In the meantime, they continue feeling numb and distant. Others feel a jumble of emotions so intensely, they can't make sense of them. One of the goals of grief counseling is to express those emotions in whatever way works best for you.

Overcoming Guilt. Guilt, in most cases, is not a healthy emotion to hang onto. Yet, many people feel guilty for things they've said or done or for things they've failed to say or do before their loved one passed. It's essential to identify those guilt feelings. Your grief counselor can help you see the futility of smothering yourself with should-haves and shouldn't-haves. They can help you find more constructive ways to deal with the reality that no relationship is perfect.

Coping with Life Changes. When you lose someone who has been close to you, your life necessarily changes. You won't be able to share happy times with them again. And your entire daily life may be in a state of upheaval because you shared almost every waking moment. Without your loved one, your life will change, and with that change comes additional losses, such as the loss of a morning routine. Grief counseling can help you examine those changes and find new ways to live your life.

Building a Support System. If the person you lost was your primary support system, you'll likely need to build up your support for daily living. Often when a spouse dies, you must perform the tasks you once relied on them to do. You may now have to file insurance papers, manage a budget, or do cooking and housekeeping chores you've never done before. This goes much more smoothly after your counselor helps you find community resources and encourages you to build stronger community ties.

Grief Counseling Techniques

Grief counselors use a variety of techniques to help you experience, understand, and move through the grief process. The following list covers some common grief counseling techniques.

- Talking Privately in a Quiet Place. Trying to deal with death in a rushed, noisy atmosphere is extremely unproductive. It's too hard to uncover the serious emotions and challenges that are a part of grief. Of course, most counseling does happen in a quiet, private place. Yet, you may feel hurried to get to your appointment and rushed once you get there. If so, you can set up online grief counseling through BetterHelp so you can talk in private wherever you feel most comfortable.

- Describing the Moment of Loss. The moment of loss may have been quiet or traumatic. Describing that moment completely, using sense words like "I heard" or "I saw" allows you to re-experience the loss. As you do, your counselor can put it into perspective while giving you support for the emotions that surface as you remember. This also helps them identify trauma, which can then be dealt with before the grief.

- Discussing Funeral Arrangements. You might think, "Why would I talk about the funeral arrangements with my grief counselor? What do they have to do with that?" The funeral or memorial service you and/or others set up to honor your loved one is an important event in the grieving process. As you talk about it, you can express your feelings about this last farewell and what you want it to be like. You may even be able to identify ways you want to change the service to give the deceased your full respect.

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- Using the Right Words. You might notice that one of your grief counselor's techniques is to use the words it's important for you to hear. For example, they'll be sure to use the past tense when talking about your loved one. They'll say their name frequently. They'll also use words that may be very hard for you to hear at first, such as forms of the word "to die." It's important to note that your grief counselor will never push you past your comfort zone and will respect your boundaries.

- Checking for Signs of Depression. Each time you see your grief counselor, they'll probably ask you at least a few questions to make sure you aren't falling into a deep depression. They may ask how you're sleeping and how much you're eating. They may ask whether you feel unexplained physical pain. They also might discuss depression symptoms at different appointments with you to ensure they aren't missing anything.

- Talking about Past Losses. Counselors often prompt you to talk about similar situations from the past and how you dealt with them. In the case of grief, your counselor might ask you to remember how you coped when you faced death earlier in your life. Then they can support you in repeating the things that helped before and teach you new ways of coping to replace old methods that weren't effective.

- Boosting Self-Esteem. Your self-esteem is the way you feel about yourself, but it may also be tied up with what you perceived your loved one thought of you. If you always relied on them to say or do things that made you feel beautiful, intelligent, or capable, you might need an extra boost of self-esteem after they pass on. Your grief counselor can teach you ways to improve your self-confidence and learn to find validation within yourself.

- Giving Permission to Grieve. Many people find it hard to give themselves permission to grieve. They may see it as a sign of weakness, selfishness, or incompetence. Yet, grieving is a crucial part of saying goodbye to a loved one who has died. Your counselor can help you find it within you to give yourself the permission you need to feel and express your feelings and not be so perfect all the time.

- Setting Realistic Goals. Goal-setting is a part of almost every kind of therapy. Because grief involves so many life changes for most people, setting goals for your new life is especially important. You may find yourself setting unrealistic goals, though, as you try to push through your grief faster. You need to be cautious, so you don't overwhelm yourself. Setting unreachable goals makes you feel like a failure when you can't accomplish them. It can also be a way of avoiding the natural grief process. Talk out your plans with your counselor so they can help you determine the right goals to work toward right now.

- Writing a Letter. Your therapist might suggest you write a letter to the deceased to tell them how you feel about losing them. They might also suggest you tell them about how your life is now and the goals you're working toward for the future. This exercise can help you get back in touch with the feelings of love you have for them. It can help you resolve issues that linger in your mind, too.

- Journaling. Journaling is like letter writing, but the intended audience is you. You remind yourself of good times, reason out problems, write poems to express your feelings, draw pictures that remind you of your loved one, or include mementos of happy times you shared. It's a place to say whatever you want, just as you can with your therapist. It's also a habit that can serve you well after your grief counseling ends.

- Reading Assignments. Reading about grief helps you understand the process. It also reminds you that what you're going through is not only common but perfectly acceptable as well. In short, it normalizes grief. Your grief counselor might suggest specific books for you to read between sessions.

- Creating a Memory Book. Creating a memory book is a craft project you can do to help you remember your loved one in a helpful way. You can make it alone or ask family members and friends to contribute to it. This is one of the grief techniques that is not only emotionally healthy, but it can be enjoyable as well.

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- Art Therapy. Expressive art therapy, of course, is a wonderful way to show how you feel about your loved one who has passed. A counselor who has certification in art therapy can guide you in creating artistic works that are full of emotion and meaning. When you finish the art, you can hang it in a special place, give it away, sell it, or simply set it aside for your remembrance ritual.

- Imagining a Resolution of Unfinished Business. Grief is hard for anyone, but it can be especially difficult to move on from a relationship that was in crisis when your loved one died. Perhaps you have an issue you can't forget because it feels unfinished. There's no way for that problem to be resolved in real life now. However, you can imagine what would happen if you were able to resolve it. This grief counseling technique helps you put your relationship into perspective. If you imagine a positive resolution, it can give you amazing peace.

- The Empty Chair Technique. The empty chair technique is one that is used in several types of therapy. All you do is face an empty chair, imagine another person is sitting in it, and speak to them. In the case of grief counseling, you would imagine the deceased were alive and sitting in that chair. You can say anything you want to them. You can show them feelings that range from bitterness to love. The empty chair technique is another way to find a resolution to unfinished business, and it can be quite cathartic.

- Role-Playing New Situations. Role-playing is a technique you might have used in family counseling or couples therapy. Your grief counselor might also use it to help you find your way through new life situations. You can be yourself while the counselor plays the part of an employer, a friend, or a community leader, for example. Or, you can reverse roles. Then, you can play out a situation you've never had to deal with before.

- Creating Remembrance Rituals. Sometimes, the only way to move on is to give yourself a specific time and activity to help you remember your loved one. As a part of your grief therapy, you can come up with a ritual that you do once every month at first and eventually do only once a year. This might involve looking at photos and/or videos of your loved one, for example. You put these reminders away for most of the time, but you take them out at a specific time to pay honor to the deceased.

Is Grief Counseling Right for You?

Grief counseling provides many benefits. It helps you navigate one of the hardest parts of your life. It helps you develop new skills and learn more about yourself and about life. It can help you grow stronger even as you face a devastating loss. Grief counseling can help anyone who is going through a major loss, but for some it's crucial to get help. If your pain is overwhelmingly intense, lasts for over a year, or is affecting the way you function in your daily life, grief counseling is one of the best ways to deal with the loss and find your way forward.

How BetterHelp can Help

When you feel you're at the end of your rope and there's nowhere to turn, BetterHelp is truly there for you. BetterHelp is an online platform where you can match with a qualified grief counselor that cares and understands what you're going through. The worst thing you could do during this dark time in your life is to try to go it alone. Let someone come to your corner and lift you up.

We all get knocked down in life at one time or another. Some place a stigma on mental health, but don't let that stop you. Throw out a line when you need it, and you can live a happier life. Read below for some reviews from BetterHelp clients who have gotten help for similar issues.

Counselor Reviews

"Collen has been my rock in dealing with my parents deaths. I lost both parents within seven months of each other and was literally on the brink when I found Colleen. She has taught me that grief has no timeline or rhyme or reason, and I can talk to her after all my friends and family have moved on and don't really get it. She offers very solid advice on coping skills and just a great sounding board when I just want to talk about my parents. I highly recommend her."

"Jack helped me through the most difficult time in my life. I started seeing Jack to cope with a marital separation. As that progressed into divorce, I also experienced the death of a loved one and some other distressing events. Jack not only helped me through the grieving process, but gave me a variety of life lessons and tools to help cope with stress and anxiety through all areas in my life. I am so very grateful for his guidance, and highly recommend him to anyone going through a stressful or confusing time. Thank you, Jack!!"

If you are struggling with the death of a loved one, grief counseling could be right for you. With BetterHelp, you have the tools you need right in front of you to reach out and grab the better life you deserve. Take the first step.