Grief and Loss Counseling in Washingtonville, NY.

In addition to a clinical degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, I also have a degree in Pastoral Counseling. The emphasis there is helping people with the pain of grief and loss which can occur in many forms and may have a devastating effect on the way we live. I have extended experience in working with individuals and families as they move through the grieving process.

Often clients reach out to a psychotherapist when there is a death or separation in a relationship. Chris provides Grief and Loss counseling and Psychotherapy where empathy and caring help clients get emotional closure to help them move forward. A sudden death and loss can causes a person to have increased anxiety and depression and limit functioning. Chris has worked with numerous clients to heal and move forward through effective counseling and psychotherapy in New York. Clients benefit from talking out their feelings where I help them get closure and provide the skills to move on and enjoy life again.

Grief is the normal and natural emotional reaction to loss. My guidance and experience will help you more toward your intellect and deal with your broken heart. We can work together and deal with what remains emotionally incomplete at the time of a death, a divorce, or other losses. I am trained to work within your inner self to understand your self destruction, and build self confidence.

When we lose someone we love, it feels like we have lost a part of ourselves. Something within us has been torn out, leaving a hole that we easily imagine will never heal. The pain can be profound, the feelings of helplessness, or regret, or guilt overwhelming. Having a partnership where you can talk through these feelings can make a huge difference not only in how quickly and how well you are able to move through the process of grieving, but also how you ultimately are able to frame the experience and your memories of the person lost into the narrative of your own self and life as you move forward. What you carry with you afterward is just as important as surviving the hurt of the loss.

I specialize in a compassionate evidence based approach to grief and loss that helps clients process emotions, rebuild stability, and create meaning after significant life changes. Through supportive exploration, cognitive behavioral strategies, and personalized coping tools, I guide clients in understanding their grief. Clients benefit by clarity.

Grief is a deeply painful and often lonely and scary process to experience. Depending on the severity of your loss, it can impact every aspect of your life, like a giant ball in the box that is your life. Every time the ball hits the wall of the box it hurts. Over time, the ball gets smaller and doesn't impact every aspect of your life. However, when it does bounce against the wall it hurts just like it did in the beginning. With the right understanding of how grief it ebbs and flows over time and the space to allow it to be expressed, one can begin to heal.

Grief and loss inevitably leads to anger & sadness. Not surprisingly, it also can lead to depression and feelings of guilt. The latter is called irrational guilt, as most of us lack magical powers to cure dying people. Even if they mean the world to us. I would encourage my clients to express feeling of guilt and anger often unconscious related to the loss. The anger is often at the person who died. Of course, this is irrational anger in most cases, as we all are going to die. The anger is over losing someone we love, value. I would use clinical interventions that usher in the grieving process. This fosters coming to terms with and an acceptance of the loss.