Grief and loss counselling for adults, whatever you have lost
What might be going on
Grief is not a single emotion. It is a full-body response to the loss of someone or something that mattered.
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Your nervous system registered that loss whether your conscious mind has caught up or not. It may still be scanning for the person who is no longer there. It may have shifted into a kind of permanent alertness, or shut down into a flatness that worries you. Sleep may have changed. Appetite. Concentration. The ability to care about things you used to care about.
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None of this means there's something wrong with you. It is what happens when a bond is broken and the body and mind have not yet found a new way to cope with the loss.
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Some people move through this with time and support around them. Others get stuck, not because they are weak, but because the loss has connected with something deeper, or because the circumstances around it left no room to grieve properly.
What people describe
Everyone's grief is different, but some things come up more often than others.
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A heaviness that is there before you open your eyes in the morning
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Functioning well enough that nobody asks if you are alright
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Guilt, for what you said, what you didn't say, for still being here, for laughing
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Anger that has nowhere to go and no one to see it
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Feeling like you should be over it by now, because other people seem to be
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Dreading dates, places, songs, seasons, anything that might be connected to your loss
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Wanting to talk about them and sensing that people around you would rather you didn't
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Grieving someone who is still alive through estrangement, addiction, dementia, or a relationship that ended
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A loss from years ago that you thought you had dealt with, surfacing now
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Feeling nothing at all, and not knowing whether that is self-protection or a problem
They are what comes up when grief has not had enough space to be processed.
Why grief doesn't follow a straight line
You may have heard that grief moves through these stages:
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Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
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That model, developed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, was an important step in understanding grief, and there is truth in it. But it was never meant to be a checklist, and when people measure themselves against it, they often feel like they are failing.
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In reality, grief rarely moves in order. You can feel steady for weeks and then be right back at the start because of a song in a shop. Stages overlap, repeat, or never appear at all. That is not going backwards. It is how grief works.
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What I see more often is something closer to what Lois Tonkin described: you don't move on from grief. You grow around it. The grief remains. Your life gradually expands to hold it, but only if there is space for that to happen.
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When that space is not there, because the loss was traumatic, or because you are carrying it alone, or because life demanded you keep going before you were ready, grief gets stuck.
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Not because of any failing on your part, but because the conditions for it to move were never in place. That is where therapy can help. Not to take the grief away, but to create the conditions it needs.
How I work
I bring together counselling, occupational therapy and clinical hypnotherapy, which means I can work with grief at more than one level.
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The emotional work. Grief needs to be felt, not just understood. We make space for whatever is there, the sadness, the anger, the guilt, the relief, the love, the contradictions, without rushing toward resolution. I trained with Cruse Bereavement Support and spent two years as a volunteer there, with more than two hundred hours of one-to-one bereavement support across all kinds of loss. That experience taught me that grief does not respond to techniques. It responds to being heard.
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The body. Grief lives in the body as much as in the mind. Shallow breathing, a tight chest, exhaustion, restlessness, the feeling of carrying something physically heavy. As an occupational therapist, I work with what your body is doing with the loss, not only what your thoughts are doing with it. Sometimes the most important work in a session is helping your nervous system settle enough for the grief to surface safely.
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The practical. Loss disrupts everything, sleep, routine, motivation, the ability to do ordinary things. Occupational therapy means I can work with you on rebuilding daily life in a way that respects where you are, rather than where other people think you should be.
What a session is actually like
There is no script and no programme. We start wherever you are.
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Some people arrive and talk. Some arrive and don't know where to begin. Both are fine.
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I keep substantial gaps between clients so that I arrive settled and unhurried. Grief work cannot be rushed, and the pace of the session belongs to you.
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You will not be asked to do anything you are not ready for. If something needs more time, it gets more time. If something needs to be left alone for now, we leave it alone. You are in control.
Online and in person
Online, across the UK
Grief counselling works well over video. You are in your own space, which for many people feels safer and more private than travelling to a consulting room. Some people find it easier to access difficult feelings from the comfort of their own home.
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In person, in Enniskillen
For those within reach of County Fermanagh, in a quiet, unhurried space. Some people prefer being physically present with another person when they are carrying something heavy.
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Longer sessions are available where the work benefits from more time.
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Who this suits, and who it does not
It tends to suit people who:
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Have lost someone and feel stuck, unable to move forward and unable to go back
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Are grieving in a way that the people around them don't fully understand
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Need to process a loss that happened months or years ago but has never been properly held
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Are grieving someone who is still alive, through estrangement, dementia, addiction or the end of a relationship
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Have been functioning well on the outside and falling apart underneath
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Want support that works with the body and the emotions, not just the thoughts
You do not need to be in crisis to come. Many people arrive simply because carrying it alone has become too much.
It may not be the right fit if:
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You are currently in crisis or at immediate risk: urgent support is the right first step, and I can help you identify it
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You are looking for a bereavement support group rather than one-to-one work
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You want a structured, time-limited programme: I work at your pace, which may be longer or shorter depending on what you are carrying
If you are not sure, the conversation below is the place to find out. I would rather tell you honestly that I am not the right person than take on work that doesn't fit well.
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Common questions
How soon after a bereavement should I come?
There is no right time. Some people come within weeks. Others come years later, when something brings it back to the surface. Grief does not just go away, and neither does the opportunity to work with it.
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How long does bereavement counselling take?
That depends entirely on you and what you are carrying. Some people come for a few months. Others stay longer. We review it together. There is no fixed number of sessions.
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I've already had bereavement counselling. Would this be different?
It might be. If previous support focused mainly on talking through what happened, this work also brings in the body, how your nervous system is holding the grief, and what it needs in order to let some of it move. For some people, that is the piece that was missing.
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Is this just for death?
No. Loss takes many forms, the end of a relationship, estrangement from family, the loss of health or independence, redundancy, a life that changed shape in a way you did not choose. All of these are grief, and all of them belong here.
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What if I cry the whole time?
That is fine. Tears are not something to be ashamed of. They are a release, and they are welcome here. Equally, if you don't cry, that is fine too. Grief does not have to look a certain way.
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What if I feel guilty about moving on?
That is one of the most common things people bring. Moving forward does not mean forgetting, and it does not mean the person mattered less. We can work with that guilt in session.
A conversation first
Before anything is booked, we have a free, no-obligation 30-minute conversation, by phone or video. A chance to describe what is going on, ask whatever you need to ask, and get a sense of whether working together feels right.
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There is nothing to prepare and no pressure on the call.
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Grief doesn't always look the way people expect it to
Sometimes it is the difficult, obvious thing: the funeral, reaching for the phone to ring them before you remember, the empty chair at the table, the loss of warmth and connection.
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But just as often it hits differently. Months later, in a supermarket planning dinner, the sound of laughter, families in the park. Or maybe it doesn't hit at all, and the absence of feeling is its own kind of burden.
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You may be functioning. Going to work, holding things together, saying the right things when people ask. And underneath, something has changed that you cannot put back.
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If that is where you are, you are not doing grief wrong. There is no wrong way to grieve.
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This page describes a way of working with what loss leaves behind, not to fix it, but to find a way to be with it.