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8,566 people sought grief counseling help in Massachusetts in the last year

Discover how starting grief counseling can support your own journey toward a happier, more fulfilling life.

Meet with a provider as soon as this week

Good news! We have 59 therapists in Massachusetts available for an online or in-person session.

Starting Grief counseling

What is Grief counseling?

Grief counseling helps people grieve difficult losses including the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, or the end of a relationship. It helps people navigate their grief process and eventually accept, understand, and move forward from their loss. Grief counselors have specific experience, training, and skills that enable them to best-support grieving individuals.

How does Grief counseling work?

Grief counseling isn't one-size-fits-all, but it involves sharing about your loss and then working with your counselor to acknowledge and accept your new reality in its wake. Your Thriveworks grief counselor will design your treatment plan around your unique needs and goals for therapy, applying the counseling techniques that best support them. It may take place as individual-counseling or a form of group therapy such as Family therapy.

Is Grief counseling conducted in person or online?

Grief counseling at Thriveworks is conducted both in person and via Online therapy. We encourage you to choose the option that works best for you.

How long does Grief counseling last?

For many, grief counseling lasts for about 6 months. For others, it may last shorter or longer, depending on the severity of their loss and their grief.

Need more help deciding?

After more than 30 years of marriage, your partner, the love of your life passes away. You feel like part of you has died. How do you recover from such a loss? Or, a family member who you were very close to loses their struggle with a terminal illness. How does one carry on after such a strategy? It is helpful to discuss the resulting pain with a trained professional experienced with how people experiencing such heartbreaks can learn to cope.

Grief and bereavement counseling is designed to help people cope with mourning and loss, not only following the death of a loved one but also with the sense of loss following a divorce or loss of a job. An individual’s sense of identity can very closely be tied to their roles as a spouse or as a professional. The end of one’s marriage or job can damage one’s identity creating a severe sense of loss.

Therapists providing grief counseling understand the importance that a family’s heritage and culture play in how someone experiences and expresses grief. However, grieving is also very personal with individual differences in how each of us overtly manifest deep feelings of loss. Various emotions associated with grief include: sadness, nervousness, irrational fears, anger, loneliness, guilt and shame, isolation, confusion, or emotionally numb.

People will often will often withdraw from their friends and family separating themselves from the potential source of support. As a result, people will compound the and feel helpless.

However, others will become angry and want to take action. But the emotional distress that they feel also may distort their judgment and decision making. As a result, problems associated with the loss can be multiplied.

Grief counselors at Thriveworks Franklin realize that people’s response to loss can range widely in emotion and behavior. They also know that the grieving person will benefit from proper and competently delivered supports. They also realize that counseling may provide an opportunity for healthy resolution that bereavement may present. But for this to happen the grieving process must be allowed to proceed for an adequate amount of time. If the process of grieving is interrupted by other life stressors, such as having to provide financially for the family or caring for a seriously ill family member.

Sometimes a person may feel that they need to be strong for other grieving family members. This can leave issues that are generated from the sense of loss to remain but not address. This underling stress, if left unresolved, can later resurface and manifest in symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. Other symptoms may include disorganization, fatigued, lack of concentration, sleep disturbance with frequent nightmares and significant change in appetite.

A person can also suffer anticipatory grief which is expecting the loss of a loved one who is suffering a terminal illness. This type of grief can be intrusive characterized by frequent worry and anxiety. These symptoms can handicap that a person’s ability to stay within the moment while the individual can simultaneously attempt to hold onto, let go of, and draw closer to the dying relative.

In her book, The Phoenix Phenomenon: Rising from the Ashes of Grief, Joanne Jozefowski summarizes five stages to rebuild a shattered life:

  • Impact: shock, denial, anxiety, fear, and panic.
  • Chaos: confusion, disbelief, actions out of control, irrational thoughts and feelings, feeling despair, feeling helpless, desperate searching, lose track of time, difficulty sleeping and eating, obsessive focus on the loved one and their possessions, agony from imagining their physical harm, shattered beliefs.
  • Adapting: bringing order back into daily life while you continue to grieve: take care of basic needs (personal grooming, shopping, cooking, cleaning, paying bills), learn to live without the loved one, accept help, focus on helping children cope, connect with other grieving families for mutual support, take control of grieving so that grief does not control you, slowly accept the new reality.
  • Equilibrium: attaining stability and routines: reestablish a life that works all right, enjoy pleasant activities with family members and good times with friends, do productive work, choose a positive new direction in life while honoring the past, learn how to handle people who ask questions about what you’ve been through.
  • Transformation: rethinking your purpose in life and the basis for your identity; looking for meaning in tragic, senseless loss; allowing yourself to have both painful and positive feelings about your loss and become able to choose which feelings you focus on; allowing yourself to discover that your struggle has led you to develop a stronger, better version of yourself than you expected could exist; learning how to talk with others about your heroic healing journey without exposing them to your pain; becoming supportive of others trying to deal with their losses.

If you have experience tragic loss, take the step to seek help and support by contacting Thriveworks today. A therapist at Thriveworks-Franklin can help determine the type of support you need and how to provide it competently and caringly. Make an appointment to see a Thriveworks-Franklin Therapist by call us at 617-360-7210. They are there to help!

References
Kneip, Richard. “Psychology of Grief”. GLPG.

Nadeau, Janice Winchester: Families Making Sense of Death. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1998

Neimeyer, Robert: Lessons of Loss: A Guide to Coping. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998

Rando, Therese A.: Clinical Dimensions of Anticipatory Mourning. Champaign, IL: Research Press, 2000

Joanne Jozefowski The Phoenix Phenomenon: Rising from the Ashes of Grief Jason Aronson, Inc.: Northvale, NJ, 1999.

Pricing & insurance

Our therapists accept most major insurances. We accept 585+ insurance plans, and offer self-pay options, too.
Learn more about pricing for therapy and counseling services at Thriveworks.

Our Massachusetts therapists and counselors accept 28 insurance plans

  • Aetna

  • Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts | BCBS

  • Blue Cross Blue Shield | Anthem (Blue Card)

  • Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts | BCBS Medicare Advantage (HMO | PPO)

  • Carelon

  • Cigna | Evernorth

  • Cigna | Evernorth EAP

  • Cigna | Evernorth Medicare Advantage

  • Compsych

  • Fallon Health

  • First Health Network

  • Humana Exchange

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Self-pay costs at Franklin
Talk therapy

Talk therapy

Includes individual, couples, child/ teen, & family therapy

First session

$1

Ongoing sessions

$1

Talk therapy

Psychiatry

Includes reducing symptoms with medication & management

First session

$1

Ongoing sessions

$1

Hear from our clients

Thriveworks Franklin has no reviews yet, but check out these reviews from locations in Massachusetts.

4.5 Thriveworks Franklin reviews are collected through Thriveworks.com.
★★★★★
Thriveworks helped me realize that I do believe people can change. I’m not the person I was three months ago, broken and fearful. I’m healthy and happy and for the first time being kind to myself. Thank you for giving me my life back.
Read more Thriveworks helped me realize that I do believe people can change. I’m not the person I was three months ago, broken and fearful. I’m healthy and happy and for the first time being kind to myself. Thank you for giving me my life back.
Anonymous Thriveworks Client
Review left on Thriveworks.com

Where to find us

Getting here

Thriveworks Counseling & Psychiatry Franklin is located in the same building as Sancturary Salon & Day Spa, Xpression Prints, Allevato Architects, Sunrise Montessori School, Berry Insurance, and Opal Beauty Lounge, as well as many other businesses. We are not far from the intersection of Hayward Street and W Central Street, near this intersection is Patti Eisenhauer Dance Center, Timeless Crossfit and Fitness, Furniture Clinic and Preferred Pump & Equipment.

Phone number

(508) 960-6973

Languages spoken by MA providers

Tuesday 8:00am - 9:00pm
Wednesday 8:00am - 9:00pm
Thursday 8:00am - 9:00pm
Friday 8:00am - 9:00pm
Saturday 8:00am - 9:00pm
Sunday 8:00am - 9:00pm
Monday 8:00am - 9:00pm

Shown in ET

Tuesday 7:00am - 9:30pm
Wednesday 7:00am - 9:30pm
Thursday 7:00am - 9:30pm
Friday 7:00am - 9:30pm
Saturday 7:00am - 6:00pm
Sunday 8:00am - 5:00pm
Monday 7:00am - 9:30pm

Shown in ET

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