Grief and Loss Counselling in Armstrong, BC.

Grief and loss is a profound and individualized experience. However, with ideas about specific stages of grief and appropriate and inappropriate types of grieving - grief and loss can be stigmatizing. Feelings of grief and loss can come from a wide range of experiences. For instances, these feelings can emerge from a death or loss of a loved one, an illness, death of a pet, loss from relationship or identity etc. In therapy we will explore your individual experience with grief and loss within the context of your life and life experiences. I offer support to individuals, couples, or families.

Did you know that grief, loss, and trauma can have a significant impact on our mental and emotional well-being? It is important to understand the different ways these experiences can affect us and seek support when needed. Grief is a natural response to losing someone or something important to us. It can manifest in various ways, such as sadness, anger, and confusion. The grieving process is unique to each individual and may take time to heal. Loss can come in different forms, including the loss of a job, a relationship, or a pet. It is essential to acknowledge and validate our feelings during these times and find healthy ways to cope. Together, we can overcome these challenges.

When we experience loss, we can become stuck in a pattern of negative feelings and emotions. It can be hard to more forward in the healing process. EMDR can help by targeting and reprocessing the underlying memories and emotions associated with the loss, thus allowing us to move through the stages of grief in a more healing and adaptive way. By reprocessing the negative experiences, we reduce the negative symptoms and increase our sense of emotional resilience and well-being.

Loss comes in many forms. Whether we are dealing with a death, loss of a job, divorce, or identity challenges, we still endure a sense of grief. Additionally, loss impacts children, adolescents and adults in similar but distinct ways. However, experiencing loss does not have to be debilitating. I offer gentle, compassionate support that is tailored specifically for you and your family. I also offer services in a group format whereby children and parents attend sessions simultaneously but with separate therapists.

My approach is to join with you to understand your experience of loss intimately and deeply in conversation with you. When we are joined with the pain, you will not have to feel it alone, even if the grief is only fully healed with time. I will help you make sense of your feelings and provide psychoeducation around the phases of grief, specifically to how these known phases can be meaningful to your current experience, what you are feeling, and how you can continue to honour the person, relationship, or thing that you have lost and find acceptance and hope.

While grief and transition are a natural part of life, we are still often overwhelmed by sadness, anger and all the confusing emotions that come with loss. There is no right or wrong way to grieve—just your body and mind doing what it can to process the pain of major life change and the loss of how things were. Working with me means compassionate care that helps you to approach and feel your feelings in a safe way, taking things one step at a time. I promise you that all grief can be transformed into a gentle honouring of who or what was lost. I would be happy to team up with you in your journey towards peace and acceptance.

We experience grief throughout our lives. For a person who is dealing with grief or loss, individual or group therapy can provide support that is most beneficial. Louisa provides a safe environment via individual or group therapy. She shares information and tools that are helpful to those who have a recent or historical loss. In identifying issues that are related to our loss we can start to then move to the process of acceptance and further understanding.

Are you using alcohol, substances, or addictive behaviors to cope with grief and loss? Although they provide relief in the short term, their long-term effects on your relationships and health can make it even more difficult to cope. Through a compassionate non-judgmental approach, I help clients explore their relationship to grief and loss so that they can overcome addictive coping strategies. If you're looking for another way forward, feel free to reach out and we can set up a free consultation to discuss further.

When we are mourning a loved one, whether it be a family member, the end of a close relationship, or even an animal that was dear to heart, it is a very complex and painful process. There is no one right way to grieve. Some clients need to discuss a specific situation word-for-word in order to process a loss and others need to just sit in the pain and cry. As a counsellor, I would be there on that journey with you. I would discuss with you what you want to discuss about the loss and I would use a client-centred approach to help guide you through your bereavement.

Often people can become overwhelmed with grief where you might feel shut down low energy states or highly activated states. This is due to the fact that the grief is so large the nervous system does not have the capacity to process it so it either gets stuck on high or shuts down into low energy states. Robin first works to effectively help to build the capacity to process emotions in your body. Then she titrates into the grief allowing it to process slowly and release out of the body .

When you lose a part of your life it can impact every part of who you are. Whether what you lost was person, pet, job or ability, it is hard to say goodbye. If your loss was expected or unexpected, the pain and grief that you feel hits hard, sometimes more than we think we can bear. There is no set timeframe to "get over" a loss. Each person has their own journey with grief. I can help you to reflect on the significance of the loss in your life, how to cope with grief, and a future that honours what you had to leave behind.