South Tampa Grief Therapy

Bereavement Counseling and Therapeutic Services in Tampa

Compassionate Grief Counseling for end of life, death, and loss.

What is Grief?

There is no greater pain a human can experience than losing a core loved one. It takes everything you have to process grief because it is a restructuring of every memory and every thought, with the new knowledge your loved one is gone. You are grieving the past, present, and future. Know that you are not alone – I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and Certified Grief Professional in Tampa, and I am here to help you heal from the pain of grief.

When to Seek Therapy for Grief

Any time is the right time to start grief counseling. When grief is persistent, it can become severely disabling. The term “unresolved grief” describes prolonged and intense grief that can lead to substantial physical and emotional impairment — as well as affect other parts of our lives such as work and social functioning.¹  Without grief therapy, unresolved grief can result in a range of physical and emotional symptoms.²

Grief can be Isolating

Grief can keep you from living the life you want. You can be minding your own business (say grocery shopping or working at the office), when a memory suddenly comes out of nowhere and sucker punches you. Sometimes the pain is so intense it can drop you to your knees. A lot of people are afraid this will happen in social situations, so they hide. Friends and relatives may not be a member of what I call “The Unfortunate Club,” so they don’t understand grief. They want to pat you on the head and make it all better with statements like, “he’s in a better place now,” or “at least she’s no longer in pain.” When this doesn’t work, they become uncomfortable with the raw pain they can’t understand and can’t fix, so they often begin to avoid the bereaved.

There are Many Types of Grief

Grief has both a Primary loss (learning to live without the person) and Secondary losses (My husband took care of our finances and landscaping). The Primary loss is the death of your person and the empty echoes of the life you built together. Secondary losses are the associated voids left in your life and the roles that your loved one filled. You may be feeling “Anticipatory Grief” before a loss occurs, or “Acute Grief” immediately after a loss. No matter where you currently are in the grieving process, I will help you move towards “Integrated Grief” where your satisfaction in life will return as grief’s intensity fades.

Grief can be Processed

They call it “Grief Work” for a reason - it needs to be processed. As humans, we all need to talk about our pain. When we shove it down and try to outrun it by staying very busy, it just sits there and waits. As a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) and National Certified Counselor (NCC) in Tampa, I will help you understand why your grief is so pervasive, and I will help you to move past it to navigate the stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. In addition to processing the grief by talking about your intense feelings of loss, we will also focus on your personal life goals so you can get back to living your life.

Tampa Grief Counseling Services:

References

1. World Psychiatry. Grief and bereavement: what psychiatrists need to know. 2009 Jun; 8(2): 67–74.
2. StatPearls. Grief Reaction and Prolonged Grief Disorder. 2024 Jan.

Other Grief & Bereavement Resources

1. The Compassionate Friends is a self-help organization offering support to families grieving the death of a child.
2. Grieving.com hosts discussion forums covering losing a parent, child, partner, or sibling, and topics like caregiver’s grief.
3. What’s your grief? Education for coping with grief and loss though online courses, podcasts, and webinars.
4. David Kessler shares resources for grief in the workplace, grief after a murder, suicide loss support, and prolonged grief diagnosis.
5. Florida Department of Health contains links to crisis support websites and hotlines.