Why working with grief can feel difficult in counselling.

There are times in the counselling room where grief does not seem to be shifting.

The client may feel stuck, or unsure what they are feeling. You might find yourself wondering what the work is, or whether you are helping.

Grief is something that most counsellors will encounter at some point in their work, but it is not always something we feel fully confident working with.

When grief doesn’t look how we expect

Part of the difficulty is that grief does not always present in the way we expect it to. We are often taught to associate grief with bereavement, but in practice it can show up in many different ways. It might relate to the loss of a relationship, a change in health, a shift in identity, or something that has never been fully acknowledged as a loss.

Grief can also feel very different from one client to another. For some, it is overwhelming and ever-present. For others, it sits just beneath the surface and comes out in ways that are not immediately recognisable. It can show up as anger, anxiety, irritability or a general sense that something is not quite right.

When working with grief in counselling feels difficult

This is often where the uncertainty comes in for us as counsellors.

You may find yourself sitting with a client and feeling unsure about what the work is.

The grief does not seem to be moving. The client may feel stuck, or unsure what they are feeling. You might start to question whether you are helping, or whether something different is needed.

Often, the sense of stuckness is not about the counselling not working, but about what is happening around the grief.

Looking beyond the grief

At times, what presents as grief may be only part of the picture.

A client may come for grief counselling, but there can be other factors shaping how that grief is held and expressed. This might include earlier trauma or patterns from past relationships, but also current difficulties such as relationship issues or other ongoing stressors.

The relationship being grieved may also have been difficult or complex. There may be feelings that are hard to acknowledge, such as anger, guilt or even relief, which can make the grieving process feel more confusing or stuck. When these aspects are not recognised or given space, the grief can feel harder to access or move through.

Grief does not tend to respond well to being pushed or worked through in a structured way. It does not follow a clear path and it does not always fit neatly into the models that we have learned.

Timing and readiness

It is not always the right time for grief counselling.

In the early days or weeks following a loss, people are often still in shock, or trying to adjust to what has happened. At this stage, there may be little capacity to process the loss in any depth.

In some cases, particularly where the loss has been traumatic, early support can be important. However, outside of this, moving too quickly into grief work can sometimes feel overwhelming or unhelpful, and may contribute to that sense of things not moving.

Understanding the client’s story

Over time, I have come to understand that working with grief is less about knowing what to say, and more about understanding the client’s story.

Taking the time to build a clearer picture of what is sitting underneath the grief, how it is being held, and what might be getting in the way of it being expressed or processed can often shift things in a way that feels more natural.

This is something that I became particularly aware of when managing a specialist bereavement counselling service. Again and again, I saw how complex grief could be, and how important it was for counsellors to feel equipped to recognise and work with it.

This is what led me to develop my CPD course, Essential Skills for Grief Work.

The course focuses on the practical reality of working with grief and covers areas such as the different types of loss, recognising when grief becomes complicated or stuck, working with traumatic grief and flashbacks, and making sense of grief theory in a way that can actually be applied in practice. I also include real client examples throughout, as this is often where understanding really develops.

If you have ever found yourself feeling unsure when working with grief, you are not alone. It is an area that many counsellors feel less confident in, particularly when the presentation is not straightforward.

If you would like to develop your confidence and understanding in this area, you can find more information about the course here: https://tracydixoncounselling.thinkific.com/products/courses/grief