Bereavement counselling: what to expect

Grief is not an illness, and it has no timetable

Grief is not a condition to be diagnosed, and it is not a problem to be fixed. It is the normal human response to losing someone who mattered, and it takes as long as it takes. Some people feel the worst of it early; for others it arrives months later, after the paperwork is done and the visitors have gone. It often comes in waves, stirred by anniversaries, songs, smells or nothing you can name, and the waves can still arrive years on.

Because there is no timetable, there is no "should". You have not fallen behind if the second year is harder than the first, and you are not grieving wrongly if you feel numb, or angry, or relieved, or all three in one afternoon. Most people find their way through loss with family, friends, faith or their own quiet routines, and never need counselling at all.

Bereavement counselling exists for when that is not enough. Choosing it is not a sign that your grief is abnormal. It simply means you would like a place set aside for it.

When people commonly seek bereavement counselling

There is no threshold of suffering you have to reach before counselling is allowed. That said, some situations bring people to it more often than others:

• Feeling stuck. Months or years have passed and grief still dominates each day, or life has narrowed and will not open out again.
• No one to talk to. The people around you are grieving the same person, or they have stopped asking, or you find yourself comforting them instead.
• A complicated relationship. When the relationship with the person who died was difficult, distant or unfinished, grief can be tangled with anger, guilt or relief, and harder to speak about honestly with people who knew them.
• A sudden or traumatic loss. Deaths that came without warning, or in distressing circumstances, can leave shock and unanswered questions alongside the grief itself.

None of these is an entry requirement. Some people book a first session weeks after a death, others come years later, and both are common.

What sessions are like

A bereavement counselling session is usually a private conversation of around an hour, in person, online or by phone, commonly once a week or once a fortnight. There is no set script. It is a room where you can say the things that feel unsayable elsewhere: repeat yourself, contradict yourself, cry, sit in silence, or laugh about the person without guilt.

The counsellor's job is to listen well and without hurry. Many will gently help you tell the story of the person and of the loss, in your own order and at your own pace. Some work in a fairly open, unstructured way; others draw on particular approaches. Our guide to what counselling is explains the basics if all of this is new to you.

A first session usually covers what has happened, how things are now and what you would like from counselling, and it commits you to nothing. You can pause or stop at any point, and a good counsellor will review with you from time to time how the sessions feel.

There is no right way to grieve, and no aim to make you "move on"

People often arrive apologising: for crying too much, for not crying at all, for the anger, for the relief, for still grieving "after all this time". None of it needs an apology. Grief is rarely tidy, and it does not move through neat stages, whatever the diagrams suggest.

It is also worth saying plainly what bereavement counselling is not for. It does not set out to make you "move on", to get you "over" the person, or to return you to who you were before, and a counsellor will not push you towards any of that. Many people find that what changes is the room grief takes up: the loss stays real and the person stays yours, and everyday life slowly gets some space back alongside it.

If anyone, in a counselling room or out of it, tells you that you are grieving wrongly or for too long, they are mistaken.

Different kinds of loss

Every loss has its own shape, and counsellors are used to all of them. Losing a partner can mean grieving the person and the whole shared architecture of daily life at once. Losing a parent is heavy at any age, and can be doubly complicated when the relationship was difficult, because the hope of repairing it has gone too.

The death of a child, at any age and in any circumstances, is a loss most people around you will not have words for. If this is your loss, please take this page as gently as it is meant: counselling cannot lessen what has happened, and no one should suggest it can, but you do not have to carry it without support.

Pregnancy loss and the death of a baby are real bereavements, however early they came and however invisible they were to other people, and they are often grieved in silence. And the death of a much-loved pet is genuine grief too, though it is routinely minimised; counsellors take it seriously even when others have not.

Free support and charities alongside private counselling

Private counselling is one route among several, and it does not have to be the first or the only one. Bereavement charities such as Cruse exist, some hospices and community organisations offer local bereavement support, and many areas have peer groups of people living with similar losses. What suits you may change over time, and these routes can sit alongside counselling rather than instead of it.

NHS talking therapies also exist, and in England you can refer yourself without going through a GP. Your GP is still worth seeing if grief is affecting your sleep, appetite or health, or if you simply want help working out what support fits.

If you ever need urgent help, call 999 in an emergency, or contact the Samaritans free on 116 123, day or night.

How to find and check a bereavement counsellor

"Counsellor" and "psychotherapist" are not protected titles in the UK, so anyone may legally use them. That is not a reason for alarm; most practising counsellors are properly trained and insured. It is a reason to check before you book, especially at a time when you have little energy spare. Voluntary registers overseen by the Professional Standards Authority exist, including BACP, UKCP, NCPS and ACC, and many counsellors belong to one.

WhatCounsellor is an independent directory that does the document checking for you. Every counsellor listed here has had a counselling qualification and a current insurance document checked by a person, with the date of the check shown on their profile, and any professional body membership they state is confirmed against that body's public register. We check documents; we do not assess anyone's clinical skill, and no website can.

When you feel ready, you can search for a counsellor near you and filter for those who list bereavement and grief among their areas, look up any listed counsellor with the free Check a Counsellor tool, and read our guide to checking a counsellor is qualified for the questions worth asking. Many counsellors offer a short introductory call first, and it is fine to speak to two or three before choosing. Take whatever time you need.

Common questions