Online Therapy for Grief & Loss
Grief doesn't follow a schedule, and it doesn't only follow death. It can follow the loss of a community or relationship. It can result from a loss to our sense of self following a traumatic experience, or the diagnosis of a new medical condition. Grief can arise when the life we hoped for is no longer available to us due to some type of loss.
Grief arrives in waves and sometimes it feels like those waves are knocking us off our feet. Over time, those waves can become less high and further apart. However, we need to keep in mind (and prepare for the possibility) that they might resume their overwhelming presence - as a result of a reminder or anniversary of the loss.
Grief can can surface as sadness, anger, guilt, numbness, exhaustion, or moments of unexpected joy followed by more guilt. All of this is normal, but it can still be distressing.
There is no wrong way to grieve, and no deadline by which you should be "over it."
Grief is a natural process, but sometimes we can feel alone in it. We might want to share our struggles with loved ones who are suffering the same loss in their own way. Or we might feel like those around us, won't understand the depth of our feelings - and sometimes how conflicted those feelings can be. We are here to provide compassionate and respectful therapeutic support as your process your grief.
Also, if grief becomes a place you're stuck rather than a process you're moving through — or when it's tangled together with trauma — compassionate, skilled support can make all the difference.
Grief and loss are at the heart of our clinic's work: our founder, Shirley Porter, M.Ed., RP, has spent 35 years walking beside people reclaiming their lives after loss. Our therapists are very skilled at doing the same.
We provide online grief counselling for adults (17+) across Ontario experiencing the death of a loved one — recent or long past; sudden or traumatic loss; complicated or prolonged grief that isn't easing with time; anticipatory grief while caring for someone who is dying; and losses beyond death: divorce or estrangement, pregnancy loss, the loss of health, home, country, or identity.
How grief counselling helps
Grief needs witnessing before it needs fixing.
Our first task is to make room for your loss — the whole of it, including the complicated feelings polite company doesn't want to hear. From there, therapy can help you carry your grief differently: processing what remains unfinished, tending to the ways loss lives in the body, and slowly rebuilding a relationship with life that honours what — and who — you've lost. When grief is entwined with trauma, we draw on our clinic's specialized trauma processing, somatic approaches, and Parts Work, and a spiritual perspective (if that is important to you) so that both your trauma and grief can heal together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it normal to still be grieving years after a loss?
Yes. Grief changes shape over time but doesn't simply end, and anniversaries, milestones, or new losses can bring it forward again. Therapy is appropriate at any point — months, years, or decades later — especially if grief still feels raw, frozen, or heavier than you can carry.
What is complicated grief?
Sometimes called prolonged grief, it describes grief that stays at full intensity and keeps you from re-engaging with life — persistent yearning, disbelief, avoidance of reminders, or feeling that life has permanently lost its meaning. It's more likely after sudden, traumatic, or conflicted losses, and it responds well to specialized therapy.
Grief can also be complicated by traumatic stress reactions, if a trauma is associated with the loss. When that happens with need to deal with both in session. If you're wondering how we differentiate them in session, it's like this... If the "stuck point" you are talking in session has to do with learning how to live without the person or what was lost - it's grief. If the "stuck point" you are talking about in session is details of how the loss occurred - that usually is about trauma.
Can grief counselling help with losses other than death?
Absolutely. Divorce, estrangement, infertility and pregnancy loss, immigration and the loss of home, declining health — these are real losses that deserve our compassionate attention, and we treat them that way.
Is grief counselling covered by insurance in Ontario?
Many extended health plans cover services by a Registered Psychotherapist (RP); OHIP does not. We issue receipts after each session, and a limited number of sliding-scale spots are available for each therapist.
We're here for you when you're ready
We offer a free 20-minute video consultation so you can meet a therapist, ask questions, and see if we're the right fit — no obligation, no pressure. Online sessions are available anywhere in Ontario.
You can trust that if our therapists do not have the competencies to provide the care you are requesting, they will tell you. Our first priority is acting in your best interest.