Grief behind the presenting problem

A client comes in for anxiety after a layoff, a divorce, or a new diagnosis. No one has called it grief, including the client.

The guide: Type of Loss

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"Why was I never angry?"

Clients often measure themselves against a model of how grief "should" go, and decide they're doing it wrong.

The guide: Grief Expectations

The event, but not the loss

You know the date and the circumstances. What changed in the client's roles, identity, and imagined future is harder to see.

The guide: Identity

What's inside the guide

Six pages built on the Loss Template from the Transcending Model of Grief and Loss, with prompts you can use in your next session.

• Context: What surrounds this loss? Type of loss, control, expectedness, and systemic factors.
• Grief Expectations: How "should" grief look, and says who? Past losses, grief models, and outside messages.
• Identity: Who am I now? Development, intersecting identities, and attachment.
• Process: How is the client living with the loss over time? Coping, support, rituals, and meaning.

"Try it tomorrow" ideas for each element. 

Who we are

We're Dr. Katie Atkins and Dr. Sonya Lorelle, counselor educators, licensed counselors, and co-creators of the Transcending Model of Grief and Loss (TMGL).

We wrote Reconceptualizing Grief: Developmental Considerations for Counseling Clients Experiencing Loss (Cognella) because the counselors we trained kept meeting grief they had never been prepared for. We are both recipients of national teaching awards from the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES).

This guide is the tool we wish every clinician had.

Katie Atkins, PhD, LPC, NCC ·

Sonya Lorelle, PhD, LCPC, NCC, RPT-S