Grief and Loss Counseling in Temple Terrace, FL.

Profile For: Dr. John Knight,PhD,LMHC Serving as a Grief Counselor with an emphasis on a gentle and empathic approach to care. With service and post doctoral training in Clinical Pastoral Counseling. Licensed Mental Health Counselor since 1996. With former service as a Non Denominational Pastor 14 years. PhD in Family, Marital and Domestic Relations Counseling. PhD in General Psychology.

With my experience in ministry, in counseling, and in life-coaching, I’ve helped men work through the complicated emotions around grief and loss. As men we feel pressure to be a “rock” for everyone else. Then our wives tell us to open up and feel our feelings. But do they really want to see us fall apart? Like many things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Chances are that you’ve bravely put your feelings on hold to care for others, and regardless of what the world says, there’s love and nobility in that. And at the same time, you need a place to be real and work through the pain. If you’re ready to take the next step and face what needs to be faced, man to man, I’m here to help.

A lot of people run from grief work - I don't. I understand the pain of loss and I will help you through the darkness. Grief is a very profound and personal experience. The pain of loss never goes away completely - that person will always be an important part of your life and experience. I am happy to help you walk through that pain so that you are not alone in your grief.

Grief and loss can be so difficult to manage and come out of nowhere. When we work together, we will gently learn the about the grief journey you are experiencing. As we learn your life experiences, we may find that some of the distress is rooted in early childhood trauma and attachment wounding. We will welcome all parts of yourself and learn about the challenging messages you may have grown up with that manifested into the distress you feel today. Disordered eating can be a messenger, an alarm telling you that it is time to heal experiences from earlier in life. I am trained in using EMDR, Emotion Focused Therapy and Expressive Arts to help you become your best self.

As an experienced Christian Counselor and ordained pastor, I’ve supported many men through the grief process. If you’re grieving, I will provide a supportive space for you to process your emotions. Because grief is a normal part of being human, I can’t take it away or rush you through it. However, I can help you identify barriers to grief, and help you prevent the grief process from becoming stuck. I know grief professionally. But I also know grief personally. Losing one of my best friends and my beloved grandparents was hard enough, but facing the untimely death of my father was, and is, a uniquely painful experience. If given the chance, I would be honored to help you process your grief.

At the heart of our grief and loss therapy is offering our clients much-needed professional and pastoral care. Emphasis is placed of careful assessment and understanding of the crisis. Next, clients will be given the necessary support required to alleviate the crisis by both teaching and providing coping skills. As an ordained pastor and and Certified Clinical Christian Therapist, clients can, as it were, get the best of both worlds. In the next phase of counseling clients learn how to build their resilience by offering them empathy, love and compassion. The final phase of our therapeutic approach focuses on self-care through the realignment of one's identity as well as the creation of hope.

Losing someone or something is incredibly hard. I believe that one of the great myths that we are told is simply that “time heals all wounds.” Time can actually reinforce the pain of loss and it is important to mourn and grieve that which we no longer have. I am honored to partner with my clients on their journey through healing and finding peace after a loss. I look forward to the opportunity to work with you.

Grief is hard. Grief is natural. Animals grieve. Grief is something we feel deep in our bodies and can be disorienting and destabilizing. Grief brings up questions about who we are, the world, the existence or goodness of God, and purpose and futility of life. Dealing with grief, especially when the loss is traumatic and unexpected, requires a slow and tender space to allow the grief to move through our body and to settle in our hearts with warmth and memory. I am here to help you grieve the loss of your loved one, experience, health , future or even your beloved pet. .

Life can throw some seriously tough challenges our way, and when we go through difficult losses, it can hit us like a ton of bricks. Sometimes, these losses pile up, and it's like an avalanche of emotions that we can't escape. I'm here to walk alongside you shedding light through what seems like a dark path. I get it because I've been through tough times too. I use some special therapies like EMDR and Trauma Informed Therapy that can help find hope and renewed purpose. Many find this relief in 1 to 3 sessions. It's like giving your heart some room to breathe and find its way back to hope in the midst of deep sadness.

Grey Matters International and the work of Kevin J. Fleming, Ph.D approaches issues of grief & loss through the lens of innovation----instead of growing the same neural networks responsible for the pain in weekly therapy sessions, we reset the brain to move forward quicker and efficiently by working on the stuck limbic system so as to empower the person with more success and traction. For no one wants to stay in a grief mode for too long; but when you don’t include the brain in your work with someone, you risk describing the water to them while they drown and calling it success. Contact Grey Matters International, Inc now at kevin@kevinflemingphd.com or 877-606-6161.

Although many people experience grief and loss, each person's experience is both similar to others and, at the same time, uniquely different from that of others. The process is not time oriented but process oriented with each experience requiring its own pace and passage through developing stages of awareness. There is no prescribed time to be "finished with grieving" or "over it." Even though the work cannot be delegated to someone else to do for us, it helps to know there is someone who will walk alongside us in our journey.

We help our client to heal and process grief and loss through holding safe space for them to work through difficult emotions and experiences in a supportive environment. Everyone grieves differently, but it can be very beneficial to receive support from loved ones and therapists as you cope with grief and loss. Collaborative therapy, Emotionally-Focused therapy, grief psychoeducation, and techniques such as EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and ART (Accelerated Resolution Therapy) can be especially helpful.