Grief Counseling New York
Private Counseling &
Grief And Loss Retreats 
With Jon Terrell, MA

As a grief retreat leader and counselor I help my clients come to a place of peace and healing. A unique aspect of our approach is our Grief and Loss Retreat, an intensive 3 1/2 day experience where participants learn to transform emotional pain so they can move forward.

Reasons we seek grief counseling & grief retreats:

-- Loss of a loved one
-- Divorce or separation
-- Illness or major life change
-- Job or life or relationship burnout
-- Difficult transitions
-- Feeling sad, hurt, anxious, guilt
-- Physical and emotional pain
-- Sleeplessness, loss of appetite
-- Confusion, disconnected
-- Feeling stuck, depressed
-- To work through childhood pain
-- Fatigue, chronic pain

Complicated Grief

Our grief can be complicated. As one grief counselor said, grief never dances alone. You may be experiencing feelings of anger, fear, anxiety, depression, guilt, resentment and other uncomfortable emotions. You may have trouble sleeping, feel "out of it", be tired all the time, and have unexplained physical symptoms.

All our feelings are layered one on top of the other, like a layered cake. Grief may temporarily be on top, but, as Elizabeth Kubler-Ross pointed out, anger at others and/or ourselves is often right underneath. It may be hard to admit to ourselves, but we are often furious for someone dying or leaving us. It can feel like a betrayal, an abandonment.

We recognize the complexity of grief in all its phases and flavors.

Grief and Depression

When we have losses that we don’t grieve, the grief doesn’t just go away. Instead, the energy of grief has no place to go to and it gets stuck. This can lead to the heavy state we call depression.

Depressed people are weighed down by the heaviness of unexpressed feelings, especially grief. Other feelings, including anxiety, fear, anger and resentment can be there as well, below the surface depression.

When we are depressed we lose our zest for life, we lose our desire to grow and be creative.

In grieving there is a natural turning inward to feel the pain of loss. Gradually that pain lifts and that phase of our grieving is complete. We begin to turn outward again, towards life and living.

With depression, though, that process is thwarted. At our Grief and Loss Retreats we can help people with this type of depression, helping them to acknowledge their past losses so that they can truly grieve them. Then they too can begin to move on, moving back into a new aliveness. Back into life again.

Anger and Depression

Therapists often treat depression with a combination of medication, talk therapy and skill building. While these can be valuable, I find that this often avoids directly work with the powerful energy of anger.

I've written a page on this topic and you can read it here. As anger is worked through we have a burst of new energy that can be very helpful in moving forward.

(The retreat that is mentioned there is similar to the Grief and Loss Retreat. Either retreat can be a component of our Grief Counseling New York program.)

Grief, Loss And Difficult Emotions Retreats

A unique aspect of our grief counseling work is our Grief, Loss And Difficult Emotions Retreats. Influenced by the work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and Dr. Gerald Jud, the retreats are about working through stuck feelings to move towards joy and renewal.

These are 3 1/2 day experiences in a rural, peaceful setting outside of New York City, focus on helping people work through the pain of grief. These retreats are appropriate for people who have been caught up in the pain of grief for sometime and are getting ready to move to the next stage.

At each retreat we create a loving community that becomes a safe container to do deeply personal work of healing. This retreat can be an additional support to those in grief counseling who are learning to cope with grief as well as others working through sadness, grief and loss.

To find out more about the retreats go to this page.

Jon Terrell offers Grief Counseling in western Massachusetts and long distance. Rates are $175 for an hour session. Jon does not take insurance. For more information or if you have a question, contact him using the form below.

Jon Terrell, M.A.

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Go To Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief

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