No one should have to experience grief alone. When it’s hard to find real support, though, it can be hard to know where to turn next. That’s where grief counselors come in. Grief counselors are there to help you sort through the complex feelings that accompany loss.
The grief counselors at Thriveworks Counseling & Psychiatry Cleveland work with your best interest at heart, providing comprehensive, compassionate, and transparent care and guidance. They can also see you in your chosen environment—via online therapy or in person at our Cleveland office. If you need support and don’t know where to start, go online and book a session with a Thriveworks grief counselor today.
How Does Grief Therapy Work?
Grief is one of the most difficult things in life to go through—it makes sense that you might need help getting through it. A grief therapist there to support, guide, and assist you on your healing journey. They do this using multiple types of therapy techniques, such as:
- Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT): The main tenet of ACT is to accept negative emotions in order to process and work through them rather than avoid them. ACT does this by focusing on the connections between thoughts and behaviors.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): CBT focuses on the connection between your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in order to identify negative or maladaptive patterns. Through noticing these connections and discovering negative patterns, you can work to change them and develop new, healthy patterns.
- Traumatic grief therapy: This type of therapy is directed toward those who experience a traumatic loss. It focuses both on the trauma responses that might be present as well as processing your grief.
- Complicated grief therapy: A type of therapy also used for instances of traumatic grief and loss, complicated grief therapy is characterized by a strong desire for a deceased person to return, something seen in prolonged grief disorder. Because of this desire, you might avoid things with connections to the person you lost. Complicated grief therapy works to adjust this mindset and find healthy, productive ways for you to remember your loved one and develop strong coping skills.
- Group therapy: Group therapy can give people dealing with loss a sense of community, support, and understanding. Grief can feel isolating, so integrating yourself into a group of people that understand the complexities of how grief feels can feel very validating.
How to Tell if I Need Therapy for My Grief
Grief often accompanies the loss of someone or something, whether that be a loved one, a job, a house, or something else important to you. However, not everyone that grieves goes to grief therapy. Often, therapy is needed when grief is starting to interfere with daily functioning. This can happen in multiple ways—for example, when you’re experiencing things like:
- Avoidance: Grief can feel overwhelming, and because of this, it can feel easier to avoid your intense feelings and rather than processing them as they come. A grief counselor can give you helpful tools for you to learn how to access your grief without it overwhelming you each time, allowing you to let it go rather than keep it inside.
- Maladaptive grief: Coping strategies are an important part of processing and dealing with difficult emotions like grief, but when those strategies become more harmful than helpful (maladaptive), it can be hard to know how to change them. Maladaptive coping strategies may look like self-destructive behaviors (i.e. excessive drinking or reckless driving) or avoiding thinking or talking about what they’ve lost altogether.
- Symptoms of depression: Grief can frequently cause feelings of guilt or hopelessness, low mood, difficulty getting out of bed, and/or disinterest in normally enjoyable activities, each of which are symptoms of depression. In this case, it’s best to see a mental health professional to talk about your symptoms and decide on a treatment plan.
Where to Find Grief Counseling in Ohio: Counseling at Thriveworks Cleveland
If you’re wondering how to find a grief therapist near you, look no further than Thriveworks Cleveland. Our experienced clinicians give compassionate and comprehensive grief counseling, making sure that you feel taken care of and supported as you go through this heavy process.
Other Thriveworks benefits include:
- Easy scheduling by phone with our support team or via our online booking tool
- Fast scheduling turnaround—most Thriveworks clients see their counselor within a week of scheduling, either via online therapy or in-person counseling
- Since Thriveworks accepts most major forms of insurance (as well as offering self-pay options), services are more affordable and accessible
- Compassionate, high-quality therapy and psychiatry from expert mental health professionals
The pain of losing a loved one is intense and horrible, but the loss of a job, a divorce, losing a house, or even periods of transition can also bring on feelings of grief that can be hard to shake.
Being vulnerable isn’t always easy, but grief counseling can help lighten the burden of grief, allowing you to move through what you’re feeling and slowly begin to heal. Take the first step and book a session with Thriveworks Cleveland today.
