Perhaps you've thought about grief counselling and then wondered what the point would be.
Talking won't bring the person back. It won't change what happened. It won't give you the life you had before they died. You might not even know what you would talk about for 50 minutes, especially if you have already gone over what happened countless times in your own head.
You might also wonder whether you really need counselling. You're doing what you need to do, working, doing the shopping, answering messages and managing the things that need doing. Some days are even reasonably OK.
So what exactly is grief counselling supposed to do?
It's a fair question. Counselling can sometimes sound quite vague from the outside. You are told it gives you a “safe space to process your grief”, but what does that actually mean when you are the person sitting in the session?
I think it helps to be much more straightforward about it.
Grief counselling cannot change what happened
This feels like an important place to start.
Counselling cannot take away the fact that somebody died. It cannot give you all the answers you might desperately want. It cannot promise that you will stop missing them, never have another difficult day or eventually become the person you were before.
That isn't really the purpose.
Grief often affects far more than how much you miss somebody. It can change how safe the world feels, how you see yourself, how you relate to other people and what you imagined your future would look like.
You might find yourself carrying guilt about something you did or didn't do. You might be angry with the person who died and feel terrible for admitting it. You might worry constantly about losing somebody else. You might feel disconnected from friends who seem to have moved on while your life still feels completely different.
Sometimes you simply don't recognise yourself anymore. Those are the things we can talk about.
The aim isn't to remove your grief. It is to give you somewhere to understand what you are living with and, over time, find ways of carrying it that feel a little less overwhelming.
What am I actually supposed to talk about?
You don't need to arrive with a list.
You don't need to understand your grief. You don't need to know what you want to “work on”. You certainly don't need to have prepared something interesting or important enough to fill the session.
Sometimes people come into counselling and say:
“I don't know what to talk about today.”
That is completely fine.
We might start with how the week has been. Something somebody said that upset you. A memory that appeared unexpectedly. The weekend you are dreading. The fact that everyone keeps telling you how well you're doing when you don't feel well at all.
You might tell me that you haven't really thought about your grief that week because you have kept yourself busy.
That is something we can be curious about too.
Sometimes the most important conversations start with something that initially seems quite ordinary.
What if I keep talking about the same thing?
Then we can keep talking about it. There isn't an expectation in counselling that every week you will arrive with a new problem.
Grief can be repetitive.
The same memory might keep coming back. The same question might still bother you. You might have told the story of what happened many times and still feel as though your mind hasn't made sense of it.
You may keep coming back to:
“Why did this happen?”
“I should have noticed.”
“I wish I had said something different.”
“Why didn't I call?”
“What if I had been there?”
There doesn't always have to be a new topic.
Sometimes the fact that your mind keeps returning to something tells us that there is still something there that needs attention.
This can be particularly painful after a sudden or traumatic death, and after a suicide, when there may be questions you desperately want answered but may never be able to answer completely.
Counselling isn't about telling you to stop asking those questions. We can explore what those questions mean for you and what it is like to live without the certainty you wish you had.
Do I have to cry?
No. Some people cry in counselling. Some don't.
You might laugh. You might get angry. You might sit quietly. You might talk very calmly about something incredibly painful.
There is no correct way to behave in a counselling session.
Not crying doesn't mean you aren't grieving deeply enough. Crying throughout a session doesn't mean you are going backwards. Having a week where you talk about work rather than the person who died doesn't mean you are avoiding your grief.
You don't have to perform grief for me. My job isn't to decide whether you are grieving correctly. It is to understand what your experience is like for you.
Will talking about it make me feel worse?
Sometimes talking about painful things can feel difficult.
I don't think it would be honest to tell you that you will leave every counselling session feeling lighter or better. Occasionally you may leave feeling tired, thoughtful or emotional because we have talked about something that matters.
That doesn't mean counselling should feel unbearable.
You remain in control of what you talk about. You don't have to tell me everything in your first session. You don't have to describe something in detail simply because I am a counsellor.
We can slow things down. We can stop. We can talk about something else.
Part of my role is paying attention not only to what we are talking about, but to how you are experiencing the conversation.
There is no prize for getting through the most painful parts of your story as quickly as possible.
What if I'm actually coping quite well?
You may be. Not everybody who is grieving needs counselling. I think that is important to say.
Grief is not automatically something that requires professional help, and choosing not to have counselling does not mean you are doing grief incorrectly.
Equally, you don't have to be falling apart before you are allowed to ask for support.
You can be working, looking after your family, seeing friends and managing everyday life while knowing privately that something doesn't feel right.
Perhaps everything catches up with you when you get home.
Perhaps you are fine while you are busy but struggle when everything goes quiet.
Perhaps everyone thinks you are coping brilliantly and you have become very good at letting them think that.
Functioning and feeling OK are not always the same thing.
Counselling can sometimes simply be the one place where you don't have to demonstrate that you are coping.
What if I feel something I'm ashamed to admit?
This is often one of the loneliest parts of grief.
There can be a version of grief that feels acceptable to talk about and another version that stays firmly inside your head.
You might be angry with the person who died. You might feel relieved. You might resent other people whose lives have carried on.
You might be tired of talking about the person who died one day and desperate for somebody to mention them the next.
You might have laughed, enjoyed yourself or realised you went several hours without thinking about them, then felt guilty afterwards.
You may even be frightened by some of your own thoughts.
You don't have to bring an acceptable version of your grief into counselling. We can talk about the complicated parts too.
What if everyone else seems to have moved on?
This is something I hear about a lot.
In the beginning there may have been messages, phone calls, flowers and people checking in. Gradually, other people return to their own lives.
The messages become less frequent. People stop asking. They may assume you're doing better because some time has passed.
Meanwhile, you may still be living with the consequences of what happened every day. It can leave you caught between two needs.
You want somebody to ask how you really are, but you don't want to be the person who keeps bringing your grief into every conversation.
You may start wondering whether people are tired of hearing about it.
Counselling can provide somewhere you don't have to worry about that.
You aren't burdening me by talking about your grief. You don't have to protect me from how you feel or wonder whether you've mentioned the person who died too many times.
So how does talking actually help?
Usually not through one extraordinary conversation. Change in counselling can be much quieter than people expect.
You might notice that something you used to think about constantly is taking up slightly less space.
You might catch yourself questioning a guilty thought instead of automatically believing it.
You might talk about a memory without immediately shutting it down.
You might realise you have started making a decision based on what you want rather than what guilt tells you that you should do.
Perhaps a Sunday afternoon feels slightly less impossible than it used to.
Maybe you start telling somebody when you are struggling instead of automatically saying, “I'm fine.”
Sometimes the first change is simply understanding yourself a little better.
None of these things means you have stopped grieving or that the person matters any less.
Counselling is not about reaching a point where you no longer care. It is about helping you find a way to live alongside what has happened.
What happens in my first grief counselling session?
You don't have to walk into our first session and immediately tell me the most painful thing that has ever happened to you.
We start by talking.
I will want to understand a little about what has brought you to counselling, what life has been like recently and what you are finding particularly difficult.
I will also explain how I work so that you understand what you can expect from me.
You might already know exactly what you want help with. You might simply know that you are not OK and don't really know why. Both are valid starting points.
Counselling with me is collaborative. I won't sit silently waiting for you to fill 50 minutes, and I won't arrive with a checklist telling you how grief is supposed to work.
We work out together what feels important.
What if counselling doesn't help?
Counselling isn't right for everybody.
The relationship you have with your counsellor matters too. You might work well with one person and not connect with another. Sometimes the timing isn't right. Sometimes what somebody needs is different from what counselling can offer.
You are allowed to question whether it is helping. You are allowed to tell your counsellor that you don't know what you are getting from the sessions.
You are allowed to decide that you don't want to continue. Therapy isn't something you have failed at if it doesn't feel right.
You don't have to know whether counselling is right for you yet
Perhaps you have been thinking about grief counselling for months. Perhaps you have looked at several counsellors' websites and closed the tabs again.
Maybe part of you thinks talking could help and another part thinks, “What's the point?”
You don't need to convince yourself before contacting me.
I offer a free 15-minute introductory call so you can meet me, ask questions and get a sense of whether you might feel comfortable talking to me.
There is no expectation that you will book counselling afterwards.
Sometimes the first step isn't deciding that you need therapy. It is simply finding out a little more about what it would actually be like.
Joanne Reed, Grief & Loss Counsellor, Free To Be Me Counselling