Losses, both death and non-death related, are a natural part of life, development, and the human experience. Various emotions, especially grief, can accompany losses whether expected or unexpected, clear or ambiguous, acknowledged or disenfranchised. Experiences with grief, while universal, are also as individual as each person sitting with us in the counseling room. As a counselor in training, I felt particularly drawn to working with grief after personally discovering the impact it can have on each of us and how bearing witness and offering or receiving support can be profoundly connecting and healing to help us grow with losses in our life.

Emotions accompanying grief after loss

As losses may vary, so, too, may the emotions experienced with each loss. In addition to grief, some may feel loneliness, anxiety, and/or depression after losing a loved one, whether they pass or the relationship has ended. Others may feel relief after closing a difficult and particularly strenuous chapter of caregiving, divorce, loss of freedom as a new parent, pet loss, or lost opportunities and connections following intense occupational or educational pursuits. Some may feel confusion, uncertainty, or ambivalence about what to feel but generally notice and feel an absence, emptiness, or spaciousness following the loss of something or someone that occupied a lot of time, attention, energy, and devotion.

Grief and loss can include excruciating pain or may be met with calm and ease. There is no one way to experience a loss, and each loss may impact us differently. This is just the tip of the iceberg on the range of emotions we can feel as we experience losses but attempts to highlight loss and grief are always so not straightforward.

Factors shaping grief and experiences of loss

One’s cultures, identities, lived experiences with loss, and messages received, among many factors, contribute to the beautifully complex journey grief each individual may walk. As a counselor, I aim to always be curious, never make assumptions, and expect clients are the experts and authors of their lives. Clients’ stories, experiences, beliefs, and emotions related to their losses, even if similar to my own or others I know, belong to them.

There is nothing too intense to hear, hold, or process with a client. Even with the most painful and difficult of losses comes resilience and strengths that kept clients moving forward till they set foot in my counseling room. I am curious about what shaped them and helped them both internally and externally to carry forward anyway and what resources and support they need know to process and make meaning of the grief and loss they’ve experienced.

Transcending Model of Grief and Loss

There are many models for identifying, conceptualizing, and treating grief and loss. Among the models I encountered during my clinical training, I learned about Dr. Katherine M. Atkins’ and Dr. Sonya Lorelle’s Transcending Model of Grief and Loss (TMGL). TMGL includes four different spaces of grief and loss that help describe one’s experience before, during, and after a loss as unchartered territory, initial reaction, lost/adrift, and transcending.

I had the privilege of working with Dr. Atkins and Dr. Lorelle during my clinical training, and this model really resonated with me as I reflected on my own losses and considered those of my clients. Applying their model and some great resources they leverage in their grief work and education, such as the loss line and loss template, helped me identify, name, conceptualize, and treat client grief ranging from processing relationship losses and navigating natural developmental changes to making meaning of reproductive losses and preparing or responding to death-related losses.

Integrating grief and loss into our lives

Each individual has their own process and timeline for navigating grief and loss. As counselors, we have an opportunity and responsibility to remain attuned to our clients along their journeys of processing, holding, making meaning, and integrating grief and loss into who they are and what life can look like. It may feel like a space of difficulty, distress, pain, and it is also a space of co-creation, creativity, and healing.

Counselor and client reflections

Dr. Atkins and Dr. Lorelle talk of the importance of counselors knowing themselves and their own experiences with grief and loss to operate with awareness and good clinical judgment as they support clients with similar needs. If you are a counselor, how does your reflective practice consider the role of grief and loss in your life and how it shows up in your counseling room? If you are a client reading this, what do you want your counselor to know and support along your journey?