Have You Lost Someone?

Has a recent loss left you feeling shaken, shocked, and alone?

Are you overwhelmed by grief, wondering if life will ever restore hope, joyfulness, and stability?

And does it feel like no one else around you understands?

Whether you’ve lost or are in the process of saying goodbye to a loved one, you are likely grappling with deep feelings of helplessness, sadness, and despair. It’s understandable if you’re angry and wondering Why them? Why me? And you may struggle to find meaning and purpose, afraid to face a future with a hole in it. Life feels overwhelming and empty all at once, and you just wish you could go back to a time when everything was “normal” and your loved one was still healthy and alive.

On top of experiencing intense and heavy emotions, you’re probably physically exhausted. You may have noticed changes in your appetite and energy levels, possibly sleeping a lot more or a lot less than you used to. In addition to impacting your performance and ability to concentrate, grief has left you with little time or energy for your relationships, hobbies, and daily activities.

As a therapist, I understand that a void exists now that can never be filled—but it is possible to grow around your grief. By offering you a safe space where you can process the emotions, memories, and thoughts related to your loss, you can begin to meaningfully heal and move forward.

Loss Is A Deeply Challenging Fact Of Life

The difficult reality of being human is that all of us have to face loss. Every day in every corner of the world, people pass on and leave their loved ones behind. It’s estimated that in the US alone, 11 million individuals suffer from grief each year. [1]

Beyond the death of a loved one, there are many kinds of loss. We can experience anticipatory grief as we prepare to lose someone or if we ourselves are given a terminal diagnosis and facing death. And we can also grieve what wasn’t, as is often the case with miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion. Anytime we are left with questions of what could have been—or if there was something we could have possibly done to change the outcome—we feel guilty, unresolved, and unable to escape the grief cycle. This is especially true for those who’ve lost loved ones to suicide.

Grief also has a way of putting our relationships into perspective. Because we all grieve differently, we may develop conflicts with family members or friends who shared our loss. Others can put pressure on us to “move on” and return to our regular activities before we’re ready. This often leads to feelings of isolation as our grief goes unacknowledged and undervalued.

It doesn’t help that our culture isn’t all that sensitive or supportive when it comes to mourning. Many of us are raised to put a high value on self-reliance and stoicism at the expense of emotional expression, and the social media landscape causes us to compare ourselves to others who we perceive to be “moving on” more quickly than we are. Genuine, concrete, and meaningful social support is necessary for the healing process, but many of us don’t know where to find it.

If you’re feeling lost, invisible, and overwhelmed as you navigate your grief, I want you to know that healing support exists. Working together in grief counseling, I can help you cope and feel more in control of how life will look after loss.

Therapy For Grief And Loss Through Angel Hirsch Counseling

A significant loss invites some of life’s most pressing questions, especially as they relate to our relationships, faith, purpose, and future goals. My job as a grief counselor is to hold space for all of your emotions and experiences so that you can adapt to this new transition with a healthier, more resilient mindset.

What To Expect In Individual Grief Counseling

First and foremost, I am here to offer you meaningful support on your grief journey. I will sit with your feelings and spend time with you remembering what was lost. You probably have both positive and negative associations with your memories, so I will aid you in processing your emotions to feel manageable through coping skills and reframing techniques. This will give you a chance to transform your relationship with the deceased—honoring the old memories while making space to embrace the new ones.

I have years of experience working with traumatic loss, particularly among those whose lives have been impacted suicide. As they step into their grief through EMDR, I have witnessed clients discuss their loved one’s suicide for the first time–sometimes years or decades after their loss. I have watched as survivors shift the narrative from one of shame, guilt, anger and grief to stories about funny, kind, caring, smart, artistic and achieving loved ones, achieving a newfound sense of peace they once thought impossible.

The Approaches I Use

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is used to address trauma—the intense guilt, anger, remorse, sadness, and frustration—associated with your grief. Clearing away the trauma surrounding your loss, EMDR helps you discover the deeper meaning and purpose behind your experience. (To learn more about EMDR, I invite you to visit my  

We will also use mindfulness, visualization, and grounding exercises to help you cope with intense feelings as they come up. These come especially in handy as we begin challenging negative or distorted beliefs. And for those seeking Christian viewpoints in grief counseling, I offer faith-based perspectives on request.

Grief may be telling you, “You are alone” or “You will never recover from this,” but by working together in therapy, we can reprocess those beliefs to be healthier and more adaptable. I want to help you let go of what could or should have been and learn to honor your grief with self-compassion and a new sense of possibility. Through healing your relationship with yourself in counseling, you can transform your relationship with the deceased—from loving in presence to loving in absence—and I would be honored to support you on your grief journey.

Trauma-Informed Therapy Is Available To Those Who Support Others In Bereavement

In addition to working with individuals experiencing direct loss in counseling, I specialize in working with ministers, counselors, and those who offer grief support in their communities. I recognize the psychological toll it can take to carry heavy emotions and comfort others experiencing a loss. Therapy can give you new insights and perspectives on grief—and a chance to process some of the secondary trauma you’ve internalized.

Common Concerns About Grief Counseling…

Will EMDR cause me to lose memories of my loved one?

Because EMDR therapy is useful in neutralizing triggers, I can understand if you’d be concerned about losing happy, cherished memories of your loved one. But that is not how EMDR works—rather, it accesses the brain’s instinctive healing mechanisms to facilitate new, less triggering associations with difficult experiences. The natural mourning process remains with EMDR therapy, becoming less impacted by stuck points and obstacles that can complicate the grief process.

Will EMDR make my grief worse?

EMDR is a safe, gentle, and highly structured therapy specifically designed to help you process emotions related to grief and loss. In a safe, supportive environment, you will use side-to-side tapping or eye movements to reprocess trauma into new neural pathways and healthier, more adaptive frameworks. The end result is a significant decrease in emotional pain and stress.

Using this tool in counseling, what once felt futile in grief can now be transformed into a new beginning and basis of reality. When you acknowledge, honor, and integrate your loss in bereavement counseling, you will discover a deep capacity for healing, resilience, and devotion to the memory of your loved one.

Can you help me focus on only the good memories?

As a therapist who has seen people from all walks of life through their grief, I understand the memories that surface following a loss are not always happy. So many of my clients have complicated relationships with their deceased loved ones, in particular when issues of abandonment, neglect, abuse, and conflict are involved. Regardless, these memories are traumatic and need to be processed. EMDR can free you from identity struggles and feelings of guilt, fear, and shame as you reframe the beliefs that developed from your relationship with the deceased.

It makes sense that you only want to remember the good—but that would be denying an essential part of yourself. My approach to grief counseling promotes lasting healing because it allows you to acknowledge the bad and embrace the good.

I’m Here To Walk Alongside You

As a dedicated and experienced grief counselor, I look forward to helping you heal, move forward, and find meaning in your loss. To learn more about how I can help, contact me. And for more information about EMDR, visit my trauma therapy page.

 

[1] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/11-05-2022-grieving-family-members-reflect-on-2-million-deaths-from-covid-19—interviews-with-those-who-lost-fathers-during-the-pandemic#