Grief is a feeling experienced after a loss. Most often it's associated with the death of a loved one, but grief can take many forms — the loss of a job, a relationship, a pet, a home, or even an opportunity. What defines it is the weight of that pain, and how completely it can stop you in your tracks. Loss is deeply personal, which is why grieving people often feel isolated. But whatever you're going through, counselling can help you process your grief and rebuild your quality of life.

Types of Grief 

 

There are many types of grief. Some of the most common include:

  • Anticipatory grief — a sense of loss before the loss has actually occurred.
  • 'Normal' grief — the natural grief experienced after loss. The term isn't particularly helpful, since there's no single right way to grieve.
  • Complicated grief — prolonged grief that leads to deeper psychological or emotional concerns.
  • Disenfranchised grief — grief experienced privately, unacknowledged by those around you. For example, the loss of a pregnancy others didn't yet know about.

Common Responses to Grief


Grief is different for everyone, and can present itself in many different ways. You might be experiencing feelings or behaviours that you don’t even recognise are part of the grieving process.

Common reactions to grief include: 

  • Feelings of disbelief, confusion, anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, guilt and relief
  • Sleep disturbances
  • Loss of appetite.
  • Depression
  • Loss of concentration
  • Mood swings
  • Lack of interest in daily life
  • Numbness 
  • Shock

Grief can bring up confusing and complex emotions. Some people feel guilt or remorse about time not spent together. Others feel relief that a loved one is no longer suffering, or irrational anger towards the person they've lost.

These responses can be bewildering and make it hard to go about your daily life. To an extent, they're a normal part of the grieving process, and some things do take time. But if your grief is stopping you from living a full life, it's worth getting support.

What is the Process of Grief? 

 

Grief is a process, not an event. It's deeply personal and non-linear, but there are common threads many people recognise.

You may have heard of the five stages of grief — a model that describes the path towards accepting a loss:

  • Denial – a refusal to accept that the loss has actually happened
  • Anger – anger that the loss has happened to you
  • Bargaining – an irrational process of negotiating: “if x then I’ll y”, to bring the person back
  • Depression – deep sadness 
  • Acceptance – a sense of acceptance that the loss has happened.

 

How Grief Counselling Works 

 

Grief counselling varies based on the practitioner and your individual needs, but it generally involves talking through both the loss and your emotions around it — and at some point, confronting what's happened head-on.

 Grief counsellors can help you in all sorts of ways, including: 

  • Working through pain 
  • Coming up with practical strategies to manage suffering
  • Reframing memories so that you can think about your loved one without it being unbearable
  • Learning to enjoy life again

Therapies and Methods

  • Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) – focuses on reframing issues and emotions to make them more manageable. CBT for grief is designed to help you reconcile the loss of a loved one with a new life without them.
  • Traditional talk therapy – building a trusted relationship with a counsellor and over time discussing your emotions and experiences of grief with that person.
  • Complicated grief therapy – evidence-based approach designed to address the symptoms of ‘complicated’ grief. It draws on CBT, prolonged exposure therapy, and focusing on personal goals.
  • Acceptance and commitment therapy – founded on the principle that suffering is part of the human experience. ACT helps you reconfigure your relationship with that suffering so you can find meaning and contentment within it.

Our Grief Counsellors 

Life Supports has a number of highly trained, qualified counsellors and therapists who specify in grief and loss. They’ll work with you to come up with a strategy to help you cope, build resilience and even maybe find a little joy in life.

For appointments or enquiries, please call 1300 735 030 or leave us an email via our contact page.

Get help near you

Grief Counselling FAQs

Grief does not have a set timeframe, and is different for everyone. There is no target for when you should start feeling ‘better’, it’s more important that you work towards processing your experience and to some degree accepting it. Often, it’s through acceptance that you can start to feel better again.

While the stages of grief can be a useful framework for understanding complicated feelings around death and loss, don’t expect your experience to follow that exact blueprint. You can’t force your feelings to change, so one of the most important things a counsellor will tell you is to accept that you don’t have control over the experience or how it feels.

Once you stop fighting your feelings and allow them to be, you may well find them easier to process. 

Grief counselling can help anyone who’s suffering through a loss of any kind. It’s a recommended way to help you process and deal with loss. However, there are a few signs that suggest you may be in particular need of professional help:

  • Numbness or dissociation
  • Overwhelming depression
  • Overwhelming physical symptoms like fatigue or loss of appetite
  • Irrational anger
  • Withdrawing from loved ones
  • Intense mood swings
  • Thoughts of suicide or self-harm
  • An extended period of time where you can’t seem to get past your grief.

Grief counselling is a proven method to help you manage and process your grief, and move beyond the suffering to some degree of acceptance. Grief counselling can’t ‘fix’ or ‘cure’ your grief, but it can offer you tools to build strength and resilience, and still find some joy and contentment in life.

Loss is the absence of something you had in your life, whether that be a person who’s died, a relationship that’s over, or a lost opportunity, possession or ability. 

Grief is the emotion connected to that loss, and it’s different for everybody. Some losses might cause you grief that other people wouldn’t typically recognise. For example, a lost job may cause you intense grief, but it can be hard if other people don’t understand that that’s what you’re experiencing, and so ignore or minimise your feelings.