Grief counseling at Seattle Trauma Counseling is for adults whose loss has become more than they can carry alone, especially when a death was sudden, violent or traumatic, or when grief has stayed raw for many months. You can see a grief therapist in person at our Edmonds or Kirkland office, or online anywhere in Washington State, and every therapist offers a free consultation.
Grief is not an illness, and most people move through bereavement with the support of the people around them. Counseling helps when the loss keeps replaying in your body, when sleep and work have not started to recover, or when the grief has tangled itself up with older wounds. Because trauma is our practice's focus, we are especially suited to loss that arrived as a shock.
You may benefit from a grief therapist when, months after a death, you still feel stuck in disbelief or longing, you avoid anything that brings the loss close, images of how it happened keep intruding, or daily life has not begun to move again. These are signs that grief and trauma have met, and both need attention.
In 2022 the American Psychiatric Association added prolonged grief disorder to its diagnostic manual (DSM-5-TR), describing intense, persistent grief that, for adults, lasts at least a year after a death and gets in the way of daily life. You do not need a diagnosis to reach out. Most people contact us well before that point, simply because something feels stuck.
Signs that grief has become stuck or traumatic include:
Traumatic grief is grief that follows a sudden, violent, preventable or witnessed death, such as an accident, suicide, overdose, homicide or medical emergency. Your nervous system can treat the loss as a threat, so alongside sorrow you may carry hypervigilance, flashbacks and avoidance, the same responses seen in post-traumatic stress.
When shock is in the foreground, talking about the person you lost can feel impossible. That is why we often begin by helping your body settle enough to grieve, and only then work with the memories of what happened.
We do not walk you through a fixed set of stages. The well-known five stages came from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's work with dying patients and were never meant as a script for the bereaved, so we follow how grief is actually moving in you instead.
Our work is phase-based, which means steadying your nervous system before processing painful material. In grief work that can look like restoring sleep, finding moments of rest from the pain, and building enough safety in the room that tears and anger are bearable rather than overwhelming.
When the circumstances of a death keep replaying, body-based trauma methods such as EMDR therapy, Brainspotting and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy can help the memory lose its charge, so you can remember the person without reliving the worst moment each time.
Grief is rarely one feeling. With Internal Family Systems (IFS), a method that works with the different parts of you, we can make space for the part that is furious, the part that feels guilty and the part that simply misses them, so the relationship can continue in memory instead of staying frozen at the loss.
Most clients meet weekly. Some choose a therapy intensive, a longer block of sessions over one or several days, when they want focused time to work through a traumatic loss.
A new loss often reopens old ones. The death of a parent can stir up childhood trauma, the end of a marriage brings its own grief that divorce recovery work addresses, and leaving a faith community can mean grieving a whole world, something our religious trauma therapists see often. We treat these layers together rather than pretending the current loss stands alone.
You can see us at our Edmonds office (8923 240th St SW, Edmonds, WA 98026) or our Kirkland office (10512 NE 68th St, Suite 202, Kirkland, WA 98033), by appointment, or by secure video anywhere in Washington State. If traveling is hard while you are grieving, online sessions mean you can start from home.
We are a private-pay practice. Each therapist's fee is discussed in the free consultation, with no obligation, and every therapist provides a superbill so you can claim out-of-network reimbursement if your plan includes it. Our practice details page covers how that works.
Every therapist at Seattle Trauma Counseling is licensed in Washington State, and you can verify any license through the Washington State Department of Health. In the free consultation we match you with the therapist best suited to your loss, and tell you honestly if someone outside our practice would fit better.
No single approach suits everyone. For ordinary grief, supportive counseling and time are often enough. When grief is traumatic or has stayed stuck for many months, approaches that work with both the trauma and the loss, such as trauma-focused and body-based therapy, tend to fit better. The free consultation is where we work out which fits you.
We do not bill insurance directly. Your therapist gives you a superbill after each session, which you can submit for out-of-network reimbursement if your plan includes it. Call your insurer and ask about out-of-network outpatient mental health benefits to find out what you would get back.
There is no single hardest month. Many people find the first birthdays, holidays and the anniversary of the death especially painful, and some find the months after the funeral harder than the first weeks, once the shock wears off and other people's support thins out.
We offer individual therapy rather than groups. Free community grief groups run through local hospices, hospitals and nonprofits across the Seattle area, and many people use a group alongside individual counseling. Your therapist can help you find one that suits your loss.
No. You set the pace. Many people start by talking about the person and their life, and come to the circumstances of the death only when they feel steady enough. Some body-based methods also work without you needing to describe every detail out loud.
It varies. Some people come for a few months to get through the first year, while traumatic or long-held grief usually takes longer. We review how things are going with you regularly, so the length is decided together rather than set in advance.