When someone close to you dies, you are bound to feel a number of difficult emotions. Many feel depressed; others get angry; some people go extremely numb, or simply tune out. Grief comes to people in different ways, and it takes time to make sense of these challenging feelings. Seeing a bereavement counsellor in Beaconsfield, like myself, may feel like the next step - a friendly, confidential space to talk through your grief in a way that makes sense to you.

That said, if you’ve never had any counselling before, you might be wondering whether it’s the right thing for you. You will likely have a number of doubts and questions. This blog post gives you a couple of pointers about how to approach the question of seeking out bereavement counselling.

Give It Some Time 

A lot of people will immediately seek bereavement counselling in Beaconsfield after losing a loved one, but I tend to advise against this. Going to counselling right away isn’t actually the best idea, no matter how bad you may be feeling, because you haven’t given yourself a chance to properly explore the loss and process the feelings associated with your grief.

The healthiest thing to do - and also the hardest - is to let yourself experience the emotions that come up. Doing this gives you a greater understanding of the role these feelings play in your life, at which point we can start to actively look at them together.

Don’t Go Because Someone Tells You To 

People tend to assume that everyone who is grieving goes through each stage of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance - but this is not how grief works at all. Someone close to you might insist that you have to reach out for bereavement counselling, claiming that you’ll never get past the depression stage, or the bargaining stage, if you don’t. However, every loss brings a different reaction from each person, so the only person who can tell whether you need bereavement counselling is, well, you!

Some people may never feel the need to speak to a bereavement counsellor. Others might be fine for months, only for feelings to start coming up. If you are grieving parents, it could be that one party is ready for bereavement counselling, while the other doesn’t feel remotely prepared for such a thing. Each case is different, and in each one you have to listen to yourself - in particular what your gut tells you.

If you are thinking about seeking bereavement counselling in Beaconsfield or online and have any questions, feel free to give me a call at any time.