In times of loss, the weight of sadness can overshadow everything else. Each of us deals with grief and loss differently — there is no right or wrong way, but grief therapy can offer support.
If you’re living in Oahu, our grief counseling in Honolulu is available as soon as you’re ready. You can work with us in person or by telehealth appointment from anywhere you have an internet connection.
After getting to know you and understanding more about your loss, we’ll develop a personalized treatment plan to meet your needs. Professional guidance offers immediate support and long-term hope.
How are Grief, Mourning, and Bereavement Different?
Grief, as defined by mental health professionals, is the loss of a loved one to death, but it can also occur after a divorce or job loss.
Mourning is the process of adapting to the death of a loved one or close friend. If the loss was sudden or unexpected, feelings of grief and mourning may be intensified and even more paralyzing.
Bereavement is the loss we feel when adapting to life without the lost loved one or friend. Dealing well with the adjustment, the length of which can vary, is crucial as you resume your life.
Grief and Loss Therapy:
What Can I Expect?
You can expect to work with a caring, trained, professional grief therapist as you process and recover from your loss. In the beginning, your sessions will allow you to voice your feelings in the presence of a confidential, professional counselor.
The work you do with your therapist will be unique to your needs, but grief and loss counseling often occurs in four parts – they provide a path for you to follow as you deal with your feelings.
- Accepting the reality of your loss
- Processing the pain of grief
- Adjusting to a world without the deceased (or lost relationship or job)
- Finding an enduring connection with the deceased while embarking on a new life
Therapy can go beyond the loving support offered by friends and family and stays between you and your therapist. As time passes, you may feel differently about some things and express them differently than you would have shortly after suffering a painful loss.
Do I Need to Be in Therapy?
It’s common for people to weigh carefully the decision to enter therapy. Only you can decide if it feels right to seek the assistance of a grief counselor. Overly severe or lasting feelings that interfere with life can be signs you’re having “complicated grief.”
If yes, you may be experiencing some or many of these: anger, shock, denial, irritability, guilt, trouble sleeping, fatigue, low motivation, and difficulty keeping up with the activities of daily living.
Grief therapy provides a safe, supportive, confidential space to help you cope with loss.
People experiencing grief and loss can have similar feelings to people dealing with depression, anxiety, or traumatic stress. Any and all of these conditions can be reasons to enter counseling.
Will My Grief
Go Away on It’s Own?
Our society often emphasizes self-sufficiency and “toughing it out” with difficult or unpleasant life events. For some people, it may work, while others suffer much more profoundly.
While there is never a way for the loss of a loved one to be easy, there are times when it’s more complicated than others. The same goes for the end of a relationship or job loss.
Therapists today understand grief and loss in much more nuanced terms, but historically it is understood to have five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Your therapist will begin treatment after carefully listening to determine where you are in your feelings. It’s also important to understand whether complicating factors affect your grief, such as a problematic or unresolved relationship with the person you lost.
Successfully navigating through each stage of grieving is vital to restore your life and happier feelings. Having a grief therapist’s guidance as you progress is always beneficial.
Treatment Methods for
Grief and Loss
Our Wellness Counseling therapists treat people experiencing grief and loss for a range of reasons. We also consider each client’s personality and needs. As a result, we employ various therapeutic approaches.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
(CBT) is talk therapy based on behavioral and cognitive psychology principles. It’s a time-tested, highly effective treatment approach that works for many people.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy
A form of CBT in which the therapist becomes your ally, talking with you and guiding you through each session. It is an affirming and updated version of CBT.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Can help you deal with the situations life brings, whether good or bad – and deal with them in the most effective and productive ways possible.
Depending on your situation, our therapists may recommend more than one approach as they develop your customized treatment plan; the goal is to meet your needs effectively.
Why is Grief and Bereavement
Counseling Important?
It’s important to come to terms with a loss in the healthiest way possible, and grief counselors are there to ensure it happens. The pain of sudden loss can be traumatic, taking a toll on you in many ways.
Psychotherapy at a stressful time is helpful to many people as they live through and emerge from a challenging event or period.
One of the goals is to help you remember and maintain a connection to the person you’ve lost. It sounds automatic, but it isn’t always – and it must occur as you move ahead with your future life.
Can I Attend Counseling with My Family or a Group?
It’s common for clients to attend bereavement counseling in Honolulu individually, but we offer group and family therapy options for adults, teens, and children. Working through loss and pain is crucial for people of every age, and unexpected loss can be especially hard on children and adolescents.
Family and group grief counseling addresses balance changes caused by a death or loss. It attempts to go beyond individual needs to foster mutual progress and healing.
Depending on their ages, children have unique concerns and needs when dealing with the death of a loved one. It’s essential to help them understand death and learn to deal with their emotions.
Conclusion: Finding Grief and Loss
Counseling in Honolulu
It’s important to conclude by saying grief counseling cannot cure you or your family immediately after a loss. Grieving is a process that each of us goes through, and the purpose of therapy is to deal with feelings in a healthy way.
- Your life and its responsibilities continue even when you are under stress and difficult circumstances.
- Therapy exists to give you time, space, and professional guidance for dealing with loss and transitioning back to everyday life.
Our Wellness Counseling offices in Honolulu are easy to reach, and we offer telehealth appointments if you prefer. We accept many major insurance plans and are here to help whenever you are ready.
Contact Info
We’re open Monday through Saturday and ready to help you.
General Office Hours: Monday – Fridays 7 a.m. to 6 p.m and Saturday 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
