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Grief Is a Learning Experience

Loved ones are wired into our brain. Learning that they’re gone requires rewiring

By Claudia Christine Wolf

Guido Mieth/Getty Images

Why does it hurt so much to lose someone you love? What happens in your brain as it strives to cope? Pioneering psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor worked on one of the first neuroimaging studies of grief more than two decades ago. She and her colleagues found that a loved one’s absence means a major disruption not only to our life but also within our brain.

O’Connor now runs the Grief, Loss and Social Stress (GLASS) Lab at the University of Arizona, where she tries to tease out the biological mechanisms underlying grief. In particular, she studies prolonged grief , a state in which people don’t seem to heal, instead staying immersed in their loss for years. In her book The Grieving Brain (HarperOne, 2022), O’Connor explains how insight into brain circuits and neurotransmitters can enable us to navigate bereavement with self-compassion. “Grief is the cost of loving someone,” she writes. When a loved one dies, it can feel like we’ve lost a part of ourselves because their presence is coded into our neurons.

Spektrum der Wissenschaft, Scientific American ’s German-language sibling publication, spoke with O’Connor about how love permanently changes our neural wiring and what we can do to feel more like ourselves while our brain tries to update its understanding of the world when a loved one is gone.

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People who have lost someone often feel like their beloved will walk into the room at any moment, or sometimes they think they’re seeing the person on the street. Why does that happen?

It’s not perfectly worked out yet, but I have what I call the gone-but-also-everlasting theory. We think of the brain as a single entity, but there are many systems in it. On the one hand, you have the memory system, in which, say, we have a memory of being at the bedside or at a funeral. So one stream of information in our brain understands the reality of our loss and can remember that happening. But there’s another stream of information in our brain, and that comes from attachment neurobiology.

To understand what happens during loss, we first have to think about what happens during bonding. When that relationship is created, that bond is encoded in the brain in very specific regions and very specific ways. It comes with a belief that “I will always be there for you and you will always be there for me.”

That is the nature of a bonded relationship. It is what makes us know our partner will be at home when we return after work or enables us to send our children off to school—we know that they will return to us and that we will seek them out if they, for some reason, don’t turn up. The belief that they are out there in the world, even if we can’t see them or hear them, works very well when our loved ones are alive.

That attachment neurobiology, that belief in the everlasting nature of the bond, does not change immediately when a loved one dies. That second stream of information is still telling us they’re out there. We should go find them because they are missing, because they are lost. And so those two streams of information—the memory of the reality on one hand and, on the other, this belief that they are out there—cannot both be true.

Our brain really struggles to understand what has happened. And when we become aware that we have both beliefs, it causes a lot of distress and grief.

In your book, you also write about the brain as a prediction machine. When it comes to bereavement, is the brain making wrong predictions?

Predictions happen at a lot of different levels, because usually our relationships with our loved ones are multifaceted. So the brain is predicting, as I just said, that our loved one is out there, and it is sort of motivating us to go seek them out. It has difficulty learning to predict their absence. If you’ve woken up next to someone for thousands of days, and you wake up one morning, and they’re not there next to you in bed, it’s actually not a very good prediction that they have died, right? Our brain would much rather believe, “Oh, they’re on a trip, or they’ve gotten up early today, and they’re just not here right now.”

In fact, over time we have to change our prediction to understand that they will not be next to us on any day in the future. But those are not the only predictions that we have to cope with. There’s also a level of simple habit when we live with someone or when we have a relationship with someone. We predict when we will interact with them and in what way we will interact with them. So, for example, you’re at the grocery store, and you pick up a soy milk because your daughter is lactose intolerant. It’s not a conscious decision. It’s just an automatic habit. But if your daughter just died, you may for some time pick up soy milk even though no one is drinking soy milk in your home any longer. So even at the level of habits, we have to constantly be confronted by all the changes caused by the loss of this important person in our life.

How is the presence of a loved one hardwired in the brain?

I would say they are not hardwired into our brain; rather they are in the wiring of our brain. So when we fall in love with our baby or we fall in love with the person who becomes our spouse, it changes the wiring. It updates the physical connections between neurons, and it changes the way that proteins are folded. The epigenetics [environmental and behavioral influences on the ways in which genes are expressed as proteins] of our brain change because we have fallen in love with this specific person.

Those physical traces in the brain have to be changed to reflect an updated understanding of the world, and that takes time. But it also takes experience. We have to have many, many days of being in the world without our spouse or our child or our best friend for the brain to create new connections and a new understanding of what it means to be without this person.

The general principle that this is how the brain works comes from Nobel Prize winners Edvard I. Moser and May-Britt Moser, who discovered what they call “object-trace cells” in the brain. They did experiments where they would take a rat and put it in a little black box every day. And then one day there was a blue tower inside the black box. The rat went to visit it, and because they were measuring single neurons firing, they could see that there were specific cells, [called object cells], that were firing as the rat investigated this little blue tower. And one day they took the blue tower away. For many days, even in the absence of the blue tower, [other cells that evidently tracked absence, the] object-trace cells, continued to fire because the rat expected that there would be a blue tower.

What’s amazing about this, of course, is that a blue tower is not very important in the life of a rat. Think how much more important our loved ones are in our life and how many more ways they influence us. We can’t do single recordings of single human neurons, but the general principle can be applied to grieving. We have to change the way our our neural networks are firing to understand our new reality.

What role does closeness play? The closer we are to a person, the more, of course, the loss hurts.

It seems that “closeness” is a dimension we use to predict what our interaction will be like with a loved one when we see them. In the same way that we can predict the time and place we will see our loved one, we can also predict the closeness we will feel with them. If I said to you, for example, “Where is your partner?” or “Where is your child?” you probably would be able to give me almost an immediate answer. Those dimensions of time and space are a way that we keep our loved one’s presence in our mind. In a similar way, we keep a sense of how close we are to them in our subconscious mind.

So, for example, we will often think of them when we’re doing something stressful as a way to soothe ourselves, even if they’re not present for us in that time and space. Just thinking about our closeness with them changes our stress response. Just as our brain cannot really understand the abstract idea that our loved one is no longer in time and space, it continues to expect our loved ones to respond to us. The fact that they don’t respond to us..., in an illogical way, can feel like they’re ignoring us. So I think people who are grieving too often feel overwhelmed with anger with this person for dying, and they know that is completely illogical. But the feeling is that if we are close to them, they should be responding to us.

When we’re grieving, the feelings we have, the thoughts that we have, even some of the things that we do—we feel like we’re losing our mind. But if you understand why your brain might be reacting this way, I think it gives us a little patience with ourselves. Grieving is a form of learning. And learning takes time and experience, and our brain is doing its best to help us. But it’s going to take some time.

You did the first neuroimaging study of grief in 2003. What did you find out?

When I began studying the psychology and neuroscience of grief, the primary way that researchers were thinking about the loss of a loved one was in a stress framework, the idea being that this is an incredibly stressful life event, and we respond to that stressful life event by coping with it. It was very much this idea of “you have so many things to cope with. And here is another thing on your plate that you have to cope with.”

Because of some of the research I’ve done, we discovered that when we have a bonded relationship, it is encoded in the reward network of the brain. The reward network is motivating us to seek loved ones out and to enjoy them as we did when we were with them. That is how researchers now think about grief—as having had something taken away from us, from our sense of self, rather than having something added onto our plate. And this is a pretty big difference in thinking about how grieving works.

When people say, “I feel like part of myself is missing,” this may not be only a metaphor. It may in fact be part of how the brain has encoded that relationship, so the absence of that person is like an amputation rather than simply an additional stressor.

People usually say that time will heal all wounds. Is this also true for grief?

Yes but with caveats. Grieving can be thought of as a form of learning—learning that this person is really gone, learning to predict their absence, learning what it means to be a person who has grief or to understand our own identity as a widow instead of a married person, for example. Then it requires not only time but experience. So, for example, if you were in a coma for a month after a loved one had died, and you woke up to hear the news, you would be having the same grief reaction as before the coma. It’s not time specifically that helps us to adapt; it’s about having new experiences in the world and allowing our brain to understand what life is like now.

Because it is often very painful to be in the world, to see old friends or to go to a place where you spent time with the loved one, we often avoid those experiences. But in many ways, those are exactly the experiences that our brain needs to learn how to understand the world now. And so in psychotherapy, often we enable a grieving person to tackle some of these things they’ve been avoiding so they can learn new skills—how to allow a wave of grief to come but to also allow that wave to recede so they can continue to do meaningful things in life or to have relationships with living loved ones.

What are the typical emotions people will experience, and where do they come from?

We have a much wider range of emotions than any of us expect when we are grieving. They include, of course, sadness and yearning. But they also include anger and blame and guilt and other things as well, such as panic. When we are separated from a loved one, we feel panicky. If you’re in the grocery store, and you look down, and your toddler is not next to you, you feel this panic. People who are grieving often describe a sense of panic as well, because we expect our loved one to be there, and our natural response to their absence can be to feel panicky.

But grief is not only an emotional response. We have a physiological response as well. Our heart rate usually goes up a little bit. Our cortisol stress hormones increase, and these often make it difficult to eat or to sleep. All these changes can make us very off-balance, can make it difficult to concentrate or to remember important details in our day-to-day life.

Is grief only about the loss of a loved one, or can it also come from other losses?

Where do we start? We know that for social mammals , attachment bonds are as vital as food and water to our survival. Because you are a human adult, I know that you had an attachment relationship that enabled you to survive to adulthood, which required you to be bonded with someone who cared for you. It is for this reason, I think, that our brain evolved mechanisms to create attachment bonds and to adapt when those bonds are broken. And obviously the most concrete example of breaking those bonds is through the death of a loved one.

But human relationships are broken for many reasons, whether that is a divorce or the “empty nest” when our children move out into the world or simply becoming estranged from a very close friend. These breaks change that bonded relationship so that we can no longer rely on the belief “I will always be there for you, and you will always be there for me.” And so, I think, we experience these other disruptions in relationships as grief as well.

And grief is not only about the loss of a person. We have grief over the loss of many things—the loss of health, the loss of a job. Our brain might have evolved to understand the loss of a relationship as grief, but it’s always also a loss of a part of ourselves. Even the language we use is helpful here. I describe myself as a daughter—that’s a word that I use about me. When I lose a parent, it is a loss of an aspect of myself. Similarly, the loss of eyesight is the loss of how I function in the world with my eyes.

In a study some years ago, we found that the severity of yearning was greatest with bereavement and somewhat less with a breakup, but they were still the same qualitative experience. Of course, there are other things that impact breakups. If the other person initiated it, the yearning was much greater than if the griever had initiated or if it had been a mutual decision. Grief operates differently in these different types of losses but shares a common experience.

Some people have a much harder time coping with the loss. Why is that?

We know from really detailed studies that although there are similarities across the way people grieve, not everyone has the same experience in grieving. For most of us, the waves of grief become less intense and less frequent over time. But for perhaps one in 10 bereaved people or even fewer, for many, many months, they don’t show any change in their grief reaction. They still seem to be responding the same way they did right after the death happened.

We call this state prolonged grief. Most people continue to feel waves of grief for years after the loss of someone important, but typically their grieving starts to change within a year. For a few people, there is no change. It’s important to identify them because psychotherapy can help them overcome some of these barriers that are preventing them from adapting.

There are some predictors for prolonged grief, and they include things such as preexisting mental health difficulties and having very little social support. Being very isolated also seems to predict poorer outcomes in grieving. We have a lot to learn about what individual variation in the brain leads to prolonged grieving, but the science is very much in its infancy.

People who lost somebody will often, out of nowhere, have thoughts about the person. Where do they come from, and are they good or bad?

People are often very shocked by the intensity and frequency of these intrusive thoughts. There are a few things to know that can help you to feel more normal in the midst of these thoughts. One is that we actually have intrusive thoughts all the time. Another thing is that when a loved one is alive, thoughts about them just pop into our head. Our mind sends us push notifications like “don’t forget that you have to pick up your daughter at sports and not at school today.”

It’s just that after they’ve died, the same intrusive thoughts are very distressing to us. The context in which they’re happening is very different now and very painful. Intrusive thoughts can also lead us to ruminating—we keep going over it and over it, and we can’t seem to let it go. One of the really common experiences that people have, a very natural and normal response, is the “could” or “should” thoughts. These are the million stories that we play out in our head where something could have gone differently. We should have gotten them to the hospital sooner or to the doctor.

For many grieving people, these stories go around and around and around in their head. And the challenge is that our brain can come up with an infinite number of these alternatives in which, if something was done at the right time, “my loved one would have lived.” But the only reality that we are currently dealing with is the fact that they did not live. These thoughts are quite natural and normal and common, but they don’t help us to adapt to what’s happening now. Many people come to realize that there is no way through these thoughts; rather they have to find a way around the thoughts and allow them to recede.

How does understanding the neuroscience of grief help people navigate this lonely landscape?

Neuroscience can give us some insight into why we feel such pain and how and why the brain is making that happen. I think it can make us feel more normal that our brain is on a learning trajectory. And we simply have to accept that things will be difficult for some time while our brain tries to update its understanding of the world. But it’s also very comforting to understand how. When we have this loving relationship with someone, it means that our brain is permanently, physically changed. What that means is even after a loved one has died, they are still physically with us. They are still in those folded proteins and neural connections. And there’s something, to me, very comforting about knowing that my mother or my father still lives in me physically.

This article originally appeared in Spektrum der Wissenschaft and was reproduced with permission.

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One-year Doctorate Ethereal Degree in Grief Counseling

A one-year Doctorate Ethereal Degree in Grief Counseling could change your life forever. If you already have a Master’s Degree in Grief Counseling, then you’re so close to the finish line. All you need to do now is enroll in the Doctorate  Ethereal Degree program at American International Theism University i, and you could officially become a “doctor” of Grief Counseling in just one year. Why wait?

Everyone leads a busy life. For this reason, it is difficult for students to attend a physical classroom at a university campus. That is why our classes are based entirely online. It allows you to attend your classes from any location with a simple laptop and internet connection. There has never been an easier way to earn an Ethreal Doctorate Ethereal Degree in Grief Counseling .

However, the courses are still educational and challenging. These are doctorate-level courses, so you’ll be expected to attend your online classes weekly and perform the necessary coursework that is assigned to you. Remember that this is an Accelerated Ethereal Degree program , which means the courses give you more lessons in a shorter timeframe. 

Meanwhile, you only have to pay for one year’s tuition while receiving the equivalent of two years of education. And since these are online classes, the tuition is reduced because we don’t have to operate a campus facility. Our reduced expenses get passed down onto our students, so you don’t have to pay as much tuition as you would pay for a traditional Doctorate program. 

Grief Counseling is a profession that is growing in demand. As more people face difficult times from losing loved ones or dealing with physical disabilities, they need grief counselors more than ever. A Grief Counselor is a special type of counselor who understands why people feel grief and the best ways for them to process it in their minds. 

Grief can become an emotional burden if it is left untreated. As a Grief Counselor , you’ll show people how to make peace with the tragedy that has happened to them. There is always light at the end of the tunnel. Your job is to point them in the direction of the light, so they can find happiness once again. It won’t be easy for them, but you’ll be guiding them every step of the way. Now, doesn’t that sound like a career worth working toward?

American International Theism University ( AITU University ) is fully authorized by the State of Florida Department of Education Commission on Independent Education to award Doctorate Ethereal Degrees in Grief Counseling . Our accreditation was issued by the Accreditation Service for International Schools , Colleges and Universities. 

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About St. Marcos Theology University

St. marcos accelerated doctor of psychology in grief counseling.

The purpose of St. Marcos Master of Psychology in Grief Counseling is to teach students counseling skills and techniques in grief counseling that follow the teachings of Saint Mark the evangelist (St Marcos).

Healing those who are in grief is a miraculous act that integrates belief as well as foundational skillsets. This program aims to help students use their foundational Christian beliefs as well as their education to lead suffering souls to a safe haven.

Students graduating from this program can work as ministers, pastors, and Christian counselors with a focus on helping those who are in grief.

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Will be able to:.

• Understand the various aspects of Christian Counseling
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• Work with survivors of traumatic events.
• Help assuage the emotional pain of those in grieving.

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The online curriculum offers an innovative approach to higher education. Enrollment is open and students may begin the program at any time. All courses are provided in online classrooms, with one-to-one faculty mentoring. Students also have free access to our comprehensive Study Tactics and Resources Center, with links to subject related web sites, online libraries, articles and research assistance. Our online degree curriculum includes:

This course is part of the Accelerated Doctoral program in Grief Counseling at St. Marcos Theology University. It is a 6-hour semester course that must be completed within 6 weeks. Its aim is to gain a working understanding of fundamental theories of psychotherapy and its practice. GRD 1101 is the first part with GRD 1102 completing the topic. Together the courses provide you with a theoretical understanding of various approaches to therapy and a practical skill set necessary for the effective practice of grief therapy. While you may have gained some familiarity with this material in Masters level courses, GRM 500 provide more advanced working knowledge of the major approaches to therapy. You will also find consistent opportunities to apply the material to grief therapy specifically.

This course is part of the Accelerated Doctoral program in Grief Counseling at St. Marcos Theology University. It is a 6-hour semester course that must be completed within 6 weeks. Its aim is to gain a working understanding of fundamental theories of psychotherapy and its practice. GRD 1101 is the first part with GRD 1102 completing the topic. Together the courses provide you with a theoretical understanding of various approaches to therapy and a practical skill set necessary for the effective practice of grief therapy. You will also find consistent opportunities to apply the material to grief therapy specifically. This is the same course offered as part of the Accelerate Masters program in Grief Counseling GRM 525.

COURSE OVERVIEW: Welcome to GRD 1103, Grief Counseling. This course is part of the Accelerated Doctorate in Grief Counseling program at St. Marcos Theology University. It is a 6-hour semester course that must be completed within 6 weeks. The aim of this course is to introduce students to the theory and practice of grief counseling. The coursework topics include: the nature of the experience of grief, attachment/loss, the major factors that mediate the mourning process, “uncomplicated” vs. “complicated” grief processes and how they can be facilitated by the counselor, special types of loss (such as through suicide), grief in the family system, preparing to deal with loss/grief as a counselor.

COURSE OVERVIEW: Welcome to GRD 1104, Ethical Issues in Counseling. This course is part of the Accelerated Doctorate in Grief Counseling program at St. Marcos Theology University. It is a 6-hour semester course that must be completed within 6 weeks. The aim of this course is provide students with an overview of major ethical issues in counseling and how to handle a variety of situations in practice, including self-awareness, multicultural sensitivity, legal issues, confidentiality, boundaries,

COURSE OVERVIEW: This course is part of the Accelerated Doctorate Program in Grief Counseling offered by St. Marcos Theology University. It is a 6-hour semester course that must be completed in 6 weeks. Its aim is to provide you with a background in identifying presenting problems and developing goals, objectives and other aspects to assist clients in making progress in therapy while enhancing the therapeutic alliance.

COURSE OVERVIEW: This course is part of the Accelerated Doctoral program in Grief Counseling at St. Marcos Theology University. It is a 6-hour semester course that must be completed within 6 weeks. The aim of this course is provide students with a working understanding of the dynamics of “complicated” grief and how to facilitate this process through counseling. Clients with complicated grief may feel that the bereavement process has taken over their lives, gone on unaltered for a long time, and/or led them to feel “stuck in time”. Conversely, complicated grief may present as muted, absent or “blank” reactions to loss actually underlie problematic emotional dynamics of denial and displacement that can in turn facilitate a host of issues (from depression to addictions). This course will provide you with an understanding of these topics and skills needed to approach them therapeutically within the context of counseling.

COURSE OVERVIEW: This course is part of the Accelerated Doctoral program in Grief Counseling at St. Marcos Theology University. It is a 6-hour semester course that must be completed with 6 weeks. This course is designed to provide student with a working understanding of how the grief process changes over the time and how grief expresses itself depending on when a loss occurs.

COURSE OVERVIEW: This course is part of the Accelerated Doctoral program in Counseling at St. Marcos Theology University. It is a 6-hour semester course that must be completed within 6 weeks. The aim of this course is to further understand the psychological experience of loss, explore the dynamics of ambiguous loss, understand resilience and how to strengthen it therapeutically, and gain further knowledge on attachment and its relationship to grief work.

COURSE OVERVIEW: This course is part of the Accelerated Doctoral program in Counseling at St. Marcos Theology University. It is a 6-hour semester course that must be completed within 6 weeks. The aim of this course is provide students with an overview of major concerns and issues relevant to working with terminally ill clients and clients dealing with debilitating illness or serious diagnoses. Topics will include working with clients who live with serious illness, counseling clients through a difficult diagnosis, and counseling clients who are approaching the terminal phase of their lives, and addressing terminal illness within the family system.

COURSE OVERVIEW: Welcome to GRD 1110: Group support for Bereavement and Loss. This course is part of the Accelerated Doctoral in Counseling program at St. Marcos Theology University. It is a 6 hour semester course that must be completed within 6 weeks. The aim of this course is provide students with a working understanding of how to design and facilitate a counseling support group for bereavement and loss. Course topics will include understanding the therapeutic advantages of support groups, how to set up/organize a support group for bereavement, qualities of an effective group facilitator, handling common issues/problems within a counseling support group, and self-care for the counselor.

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You must first make an application for the degree program. Once your application is received, you will receive via e-mail a “Welcome Letter” with full instructions for registering for a course or courses and entering an online degree or certificate program. Your welcome letter will provide full information regarding any needed submissions of transcripts, etc. You may now register for the first course in your curriculum. Please refer to your degree curriculum for your first course and click on the link to the degree program you are officially enrolling in. Be sure to type in the course and course number that you are registering for into the registration form. You may now make a payment for your course. We offer a secure online credit card server and accept all major credit cards. There is no charge and no obligation when completing and submitting an application.

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• Type of Degree: Doctorate
• Length of Degree: 1 year
• Cost of Degree: $3,500
• Area of Study: Grief Counseling

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St. Marcos Theology University offers Ethereal Programs in Christian Counseling and Grief only. Old programs have been discontinued. Our educational programs prepare students for religious vocations as ministers, professionals, or laypersons in the categories of ministry, counseling, theology, education, administration, music, fine arts, media communications, or social work.

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What Is a Grief Support Group?

When should you start looking for a grief group.

Posted April 27, 2024 | Reviewed by Ray Parker

• Understanding Grief
• Find a therapist to heal from grief
• Here’s how to know you’re in the right group, what kinds of grief groups are available, and the cost of going.
• Be sure to go to a group when you are ready, not when a friend or family member thinks you are.
• Here's what to look for in a grief group or an individual therapist.

That might seem like a strange question, but is it really? A grief support group is to help someone who is grieving. True. But there are many different kinds of grief groups, such as for death, divorce , suicide , children/teens, death of a pet, a SHARE group, SIDS, baby, cancer, stroke; the list goes on and on.

How do you know which group you should go to? How soon should you start looking for a group? Who should go? Is there a certain age limit? Can you take someone with you for support? Does it cost to go to one? Once you find one, how do you know it is the right one for you? Where do I look for a grief group? These are just a few questions that many people struggle with when they are in need of help.

I facilitate three grief groups at the hospital, where I am a chaplain. An SOS group (a suicide group for friends and families of those who have already ended their lives), another grief group for everything except suicide, and we just started a children/ teen grief group for ages 5 to 18 years of age for those who experienced a loss from death everything from a pet to parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, etc.

It is important to start looking perhaps two or three months after a death for some help if you feel you may need it, whether it is a group or individual; of course, it is up to the bereaved.

Often, the family feels the bereaved person needs help now—but that is not always true. It is very important for the bereaved to be with family and friends at the beginning to comfort them, listen to them, and help them deal with death certificates, burial, thank you cards, etc.

The problem that often occurs if they do go too early to a group or individual counseling is that the bereaved individual is in so much pain and shock that they cannot comprehend what is being said in the group or individual counseling and often leave and do not return because they feel they were not helped; when in reality, they were not truly ready in their own mind that they may need help and they were only following the advice of someone telling them they should seek help.

If the bereaved person goes to individual counseling, they should be sure there is a connection between the therapist and their self and that they feel they are being listened to and helped. If this doesn’t occur, they should find someone else. If it is grief from a death, divorce, or health-related, they need to find someone in that area, not just a therapist, if possible, someone who specializes in that field. If a couple’s baby just died, they need to be sure this is the correct group or individual to help them. Some suggestions: for the death of a baby is a SHARE or a SIDS group (depending on the type of death); a child/teen-bereaved parents group. If it is a divorce, a divorce group, not just a grief group, but rather one specializing in divorce.

Who should go to a group? Anyone who wants to be around others who have perhaps experienced a similar death and they can relate to. Remember, however, groups are not for everyone. It is always a good idea to ask the person in charge if they can bring someone with them for the first couple of times. This might give the bereaved some strength if someone is allowed to be there with them at first and someone they can talk with later.

Always ask if there is a cost for the group sessions. It is better to ask before you decide to go than to go unprepared. There usually isn’t a cost, but it is always good to ask.

Where do you look for groups? The best thing to do is to call the hospitals (pastoral care) nearby, the funeral homes, and churches, or ask your physician or nurses and your friends who have attended a group before. Most hospitals, funeral homes and churches usually have a list of what is available or can direct you to the correct place to get the information you are seeking.

Is there an age limit for going to a group or individual therapist? No, but usually, children and teens are not allowed in adult groups. So, it is important to seek out a grief group for children and teens so that they, too, can get the help they may need.

Remember, you are not alone in your grief. There is someone there who can listen, comfort you, and help you. Just be sure you look when you are ready and not when someone tells you they think you need help.

To find a therapist, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory .

Dee Stern, Psy.D., is a grief therapist and a chaplain at HSHS St. John’s Hospital where she facilitates grief support groups.

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Top 10 tips for applying to clinical psychology ph.d. programs.

Participants of the second annual Diversifying Clinical Psychology Weekend gained skills for succeeding in graduate school.

Program offers pointers for prospective students

In an effort to help aspiring clinical psychology applicants from historically marginalized and underrepresented backgrounds feel better prepared to tackle the application process and succeed in graduate school, School of Social Ecology graduate students from the clinical psychology area hosted their second annual “Diversifying Clinical Psychology Weekend” event earlier this month. Co-sponsored by DECADE, the event included breaking down application requirements, discussing how to obtain relevant research experience, and sharing the experiences of current students to help aspiring applicants feel more confident in their own academic journeys. 

• Professionalism is key. Using professional email greetings, being punctual, demonstrating preparation, taking ownership and responsibility, and using critical thinking and problem solving skills goes a long way. 
• Get involved in research labs. Joining a research lab during undergraduate or post-bacc programs, or seeking full-time research assistant and research staff positions will help prepare you for graduate programs that place heavy emphasis on research. 
• Prepare an accurate and professionally-formatted CV. Keep formatting consistent, list things in reverse chronological order, use action words when describing your contributions to activities. 
• Personalize your Research Statements (also known as Statement of Purpose) for each program you apply to. Emphasize what draws you to each particular program, include faculty members you are interested in working with and why, and state how YOU can add value and contribute to the program.  
• Weave a narrative through your personal statement that goes beyond your CV. Avoid summarizing your CV. Tell a story that SHOWS the reader what lessons you have learned and your main takeaways from prior experiences that have led you to apply to their program. Relate your experiences through common themes, goals, and interests that may not be obvious to someone simply reading through your CV. 
• Incorporate your values, commitment to DEI, and who you are as a person in your Personal History Statement (also known as Diversity Statement). This is a great place to show parts of yourself, your background, and your experiences that don’t fit into other parts of the application. 
• Get feedback on your materials. Get feedback from friends, family, and colleagues on your essays. 
• Submit strong letters of recommendation. Letters of recommendation are a critical component of a well-rounded application. Be sure to request letters from writers with whom you have good relationships and believe will be able to write you a thorough and positive letter of recommendation. Don’t hesitate to ask potential letter writers if they would be able to write you a STRONG letter of recommendation. 
• Research your programs ahead of time to make sure they are a good fit for you. Just as schools are evaluating whether you will be a good fit for their program, you should take the time to do your research on whether programs you are applying to seem to be a good fit for your research interests, professional goals, and personal needs.
• Check out additional resources and information sessions:  https://tinyurl.com/ClinicalPhDInfoSessions  and  https://tinyurl.com/ClinicalPsychResourceSheet .

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The Liberty Champion

The official student newspaper of Liberty University

Graduate student follows God’s call to provide mental health support

M ental health remains an important and ever-evolving topic in today’s society, but how can it be used to glorify the Lord? Chandini Henson, a clinical mental health counseling graduate student, has made this question her life’s mission.

Henson first came to Christ in middle school, but as she grew older, she learned that faith can often be challenging to uphold. With many questions concerning her faith, she sought answers in an environment that fosters spiritual growth and nurturing.

“I wanted to go to a college that would be (a place) where I could (feel) inspired by the faith of my peers and figure out why I believe what I believe,” Henson said.

This led Henson to attend Liberty University, where she began as an undergraduate music and worship major with the intent to pursue music professionally.

However, by the end of her freshman year, Henson discovered that God had another plan for her life. Henson felt led to use her interest in psychology to fulfill her calling and switched her major to general psychology with minors in criminal psychology and music.

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“ I think that wherever God has you in the moment, that’s what he is calling you to,” Henson said. “I remember when I was trying to decide between continuing with music or stepping into psychology, (I was) asking God, ‘Lord, would you please clarify what decision I’m supposed to make?’ And (music) was not the answer he gave me. And I guess that at some point, … it was almost like God was asking me, ‘Whatever you choose, just glorify me in it. Be faithful in it, and that’s where I want you.’”

After receiving her undergraduate degree, Henson began learning how she could apply her knowledge of psychology to something that could be used to not only help others, but also   serve the Lord. With this goal in mind, Henson returned to Liberty to pursue her master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling, nurturing her passion for helping others through counseling.

“I think there is strength and humility … in allowing yourself to be led by someone else through your own feeling(s),” Henson said. “I think (counseling) can be a really powerful tool where people feel like they can be surrounded and cared for and encouraged by someone else. ”

After earning her master’s degree in counseling, Henson plans to obtain her licensure to become a professional grief counselor. Believing that everyone experiences grief at some point in their lives, Henson wants to “step into that space and help people in that process.”    

“I want to be someone who, whether it’s a big part or a small part, … (helps people) become more resilient throughout the rest of their (lives) as they experience tragedy, hurt, loss and grief,” Henson said. “I want to help people (learn) how to process it and to take those difficult experiences that we’re bound to have … and learn from them and ultimately come out the other end with more strength than they had before.”

Henson currently serves under the LU Shepherd office in the Grad Scholars program, which is dedicated to offering students an on-campus resource for counseling led by clinical mental health counseling graduate students. Henson and her team hold private sessions for students who may need someone to talk to.    

“I love my role with Grad Scholar because I get to laugh with students and I get to hold on to very heavy but precious stories,” Henson said.

Henson also values her role as a Grad Scholar because it allows her to minister to students who might be questioning their faith in the same way she once did.

“We get to be a place where (students) are able to come and process through those questions without any sort of shame … (or) judgment,” Henson said. “We (can) tell them, ‘Hey, it’s okay to have those questions. It’s actually good to have those questions.’”

As a Christian, Henson believes that her field gives her the unique opportunity to “serve and love whoever (her) client is” even if a session isn’t faith-focused.

“God is at work in the lives of people all around us,” Henson said. “I think it gives us a space to meet their need in one way and then pray and ask the Lord to meet their need in (a spiritual) way.”

Goforth is a feature reporter for the Liberty Champion

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