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Nathalie Himmelrich

Inspiring Hope | Finding healthy ways of Grieving | Writer

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trauma support

The Right Kind of Grief and Trauma Support

June 20, 2022 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

What is the right kind of grief support and how can I find it? This is the question that each and every one of you reading this will have asked yourself.

hands and coffee on table

Where to find support?

I did too when I was freshly bereaved. Luckily I had a wonderful General Practitioner who referred me to a therapist who I, being a therapist, didn’t have to coach on how to be with me, talk to me, and treat me.

Looking back, she was very supportive and, as I later found out, was also pregnant at the time. I don’t know where I would have been without seeing her and being able to have a sounding board checking on my mental health. She made me feel normal in a situation where I felt as if I was going crazy. She helped me gain perspective and start my journey of dealing with grief before my subsequent and traumatic loss of my mother through suicide.

Am I doing grief ‘right’?

My request for my therapist was to help me gain an understanding of grief and loss. I need to know if I was doing it ‘right’. Even though I understood it from a therapist’s point of view and worked with clients facing grief, I was well aware that going through the experience myself was a completely different pair of shoes.

As a couple, we also went to a grief support group led by the hospital at which I had given birth. This was very helpful for both of us. We got to meet other mothers and fathers, who had also lost a child. We could benefit from listening to their situations and their way of dealing with them.

So how can you find suitable support for yourself?

First of all, you need to decide and find out what it is that you need. The following questions can help you:

  1. Do I need or prefer one on one support or group support or anything else that might support me?
  2. If therapy, do I prefer face-to-face, or am I okay with online therapy?
  3. If therapy, would I be better at seeing a male or a female therapist?
  4. If group support, do I prefer face-to-face or an online group?
  5. If group support, do I want to participate or prefer to be in the background?
  6. If neither therapy nor group supports me, what else supports me? Reading, writing, gardening…?
  7. What would you need to be able to incorporate the support that would be best?

Grief and trauma-informed therapy

If you are looking for a therapist and have experienced loss and or trauma, make absolutely sure that your therapist is grief and trauma-informed. What does that mean? Find out whether they have specific training in grief and trauma. You can either check their website on the about us page or ask them when you talk to them. There are multiple different forms of training for trauma some of the ones that I would recommend are Somatic Experience (SE) developed by Peter Levine and the Neuro Affective Relational Model (NARM) developed by Lawrence Heller. you can find practitioners around the world on their practitioners’ websites.

Finding the right therapist

Like any relationship, the therapist-client relationship needs to feel suitable to you personally. You might like to ask a friend for some recommendations. You could also ask for a referral from your doctor, midwife, nurse, or other healthcare providers.

In both of those situations, you still need to try them out to find out whether the two of you are a good fit.

Find out what the therapist offers in a free introductory session or give them a call and ask for 10 minutes of their time to get to know them. (Book a FREE 30 min introductory session with me here.)

Then make an appointment. When you are there sense how this therapist fits you:

  • Does the therapist’s room make me feel at ease?
  • Do I get a feeling of being supported when I speak to them?
  • Do they listen to me, and do I feel validated and understood?
  • Do I feel at ease being there?
  • Do I feel like making another appointment?
  • Does the therapist ask me about my wishes, aspirations, reasons for therapy, and what I would like to achieve through being here?

These questions should be giving her enough information on whether you want to continue therapy with a specific person or try another one.

Grief group support

There are many different grief support groups out there and through the years of COVID people have become used to meeting online if in-person isn’t possible. On the support page, you can find different suggested groups or you can simply search them yourself based on the specific topic that you need support with, for example, pregnancy loss, child loss, loss through suicide, homicide loss, loss of a grandparent, loss of partner loss of a mother, loss of a father, etc.

Finding the right group

In the same way, as therapists need to fit your needs so does a group. If you like to participate in a group, it is good to choose a group that meets regularly either in person or online. If you prefer to stay in the background, there are grief groups, for example on Facebook, where you can read and comment if you like to.

Make sure that the general theme of the group is a fit for you. I personally have noticed that there are some groups who did not fit with me early on because they were too focused on religion. I needed a group that was filled with hope and showed me the potential for healing and integration.

Overwhelm versus support

Remember: When you are in the early stages of grief, you need support. You might be able to find support among your friends or family members but chances are, they too are to some degree affected and overwhelmed and cannot give you the full support you need. Divide your support needs among different people and providers and don’t overload just any one friend. Talk to a therapist, take part in a support group, message a friend. You might find this article on ‘Circles of Support’ interesting to read.

What you need to be mindful of, is your own feeling of overwhelm: Clients have described to me that certain groups are ‘just too much’ for them, or ‘all the stories of other … losing … triggers me’. Again: You need support, so sense inside yourself to find out what truly supports you. You are also not there to support others – that might come later on. To become a skilled bereaved supporter, you might like to read this book.

Filed Under: grief support, child loss, coaching, counselling, emotions/feelings, from personal experience, grief/loss, grieving parents, health, trauma Tagged With: child loss, finding support, finding the right therapist, grief, the right group, the right therapist, trauma, trauma support, which therapist

How To Deal With Grief and Trauma

June 20, 2022 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

A new podcast is coming your way: How To Deal With Grief and Trauma

Podcast How to Deal with Grief and Trauma

You can’t go through life without experiencing loss and trauma the question is how do we deal and live with the grief and pain? Join Nathalie Himmelrich, grief expert and author, talking to people who have experienced grief and trauma first-hand. If you want to be inspired by others who traveled through their grief and trauma, found that healing is possible, and came out the other end knowing they can survive and thrive in life after loss.

The path to hope, healing & wholeness is different and unique for each and every person.
YOUR loss and YOUR trauma require YOUR grieving and YOUR healing.

This is s a podcast about YOU and YOUR Grief & Trauma.

Podcast Episodes – click here!

Hear it from those who know

How to Deal with Grief and Trauma is a podcast series interviewing YOU. It is about creating a voice for people to share their own personal experiences and start an open and honest conversation on the topic of grieving, dealing with grief and trauma, and healing.

Hosted by Nathalie Himmelrich – grief and trauma therapist – this podcast hopes to shed a huge spotlight on the magnitude of different losses and traumas and how each individual dealt with them.

What we will cover

How to Deal with Grief and Trauma is a conversation. Together, we will get to know a real person, their loss and trauma, and hear how they dealt with it, how they survived it, and how they integrated healing into their life.

I will ask the interviewee…:

  • to share their trauma and loss
  • about the resources and insights that have helped
  • and what their journey has taught them

Subscribe to How to Deal with Grief and Trauma:

…simply by signing up here or in the usual places where you listen to your podcast, such as:

  • Apple Podcast
  • Spotify
  • Stitcher
  • Google Podcast
  • TuneIn

Ask a question or want to be my guest?

To ask a question or if you want to be my guest on the podcast, email info@nathaliehimmelrich.com

And always – It’s ALL YOURS – TRULY – so stay true to your grieving and healing.

Yours truly, Nathalie

🚀  The podcast is being launched on June 21st, 2022 🚀 

Podcast Episodes – click here!

Filed Under: podcast, grief support, grief/loss, trauma Tagged With: dealing with grief, dealing with trauma, grief and trauma podcast, grief support, healing after loss, trauma support

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    Nathalie Himmelrich

    I accompany people therapeutically as a holistic counsellor and coach.

    I walk alongside people dealing with the challenges presented by life and death.

    I’m also a writer and published author of multiple grief resource books and the founder of the Grieving Parents Support Network.

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