Compassionate Support for Navigating Loss
Grief is a natural response to loss, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Whether you’re grieving the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, a major life transition, or another significant loss, the pain can feel overwhelming, confusing, and isolating.
At Greater Houston Counseling Services, we offer grief counseling to help you process loss in your own time and in your own way. There’s no "right" way to grieve—but you don’t have to do it alone.
What Is Grief Counseling?
Grief counseling provides a safe, supportive space to explore your emotions, understand your experience, and find a path forward after loss. Our licensed therapists are trained to walk alongside you through the complex feelings that come with grief, including:
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Sadness, guilt, or anger
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Numbness or emotional overwhelm
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Difficulty sleeping or concentrating
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Changes in appetite or energy
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Feeling disconnected from others
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Questioning life’s meaning or purpose
Grief may not follow a straight line—and it doesn’t always “go away.” But with compassionate support, many people find healing, growth, and even a renewed sense of connection.
Five Stages to Rebuild A Shattered Life*
- Impact: shock, denial, anxiety, fear, and panic.
- Chaos: confusion, disbelief, actions out of control, irrational thoughts and feelings, feeling despair, feeling helpless, desperate searching, lose track of time, difficulty sleeping and eating, obsessive focus on the loved one and their possessions, agony from imagining their physical harm, shattered beliefs.
- Adapting: bringing order back into daily life while you continue to grieve: take care of basic needs (personal grooming, shopping, cooking, cleaning, paying bills), learn to live without the loved one, accept help, focus on helping children cope, connect with other grieving families for mutual support, take control of grieving so that grief does not control you, slowly accept the new reality.
- Equilibrium: attaining stability and routines: reestablish a life that works all right, enjoy pleasant activities with family members and good times with friends, do productive work, choose a positive new direction in life while honoring the past, learn how to handle people who ask questions about what you’ve been through.
- Transformation: rethinking your purpose in life and the basis for your identity; looking for meaning in tragic, senseless loss; allowing yourself to have both painful and positive feelings about your loss and become able to choose which feelings you focus on; allowing yourself to discover that your struggle has led you to develop a stronger, better version of yourself than you expected could exist; learning how to talk with others about your heroic healing journey without exposing them to your pain; becoming supportive of others trying to deal with their losses.
*Joanne Jozefowski in 1999 through The Phoenix Phenomenon: Rising from the Ashes of Grief summarizes five stages to rebuild a shattered life.
We provide great information and resources to help meet your needs.
What To Expect
Great for first time patients and parents.
Our Blog
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Common Questions
Answers to question or concerns you may have.
Helpful Links Grief Counseling
- Open to Hope - Open to Hope is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people find hope after loss. They provide encouraging articles, books, and an online community to help people deal with difficult losses and continue to live happy, meaningful lives while working through grief.
- The Sweeney Alliance - The Sweeney Alliance is a non-profit organization that was founded by Peggy Sweeney to help families and professionals cope with grief and stress. The alliance offers a wide array of programs catering to both children and adults, as well as online resources and a regular newsletter.
- Scholastic children’s grief resources - Schalastic Children’s Grief Resources is an integral page for helping children who are experiencing grief and the various implications associated with the passing of a loved one. The content on the site illustrates how teachers can help, as well as advice on informing students.