Grief does not arrive on a schedule, and it does not leave on one. Whether your loss happened last month or fifteen years ago, and whether you are grieving a person, a relationship, or the life you expected to have, there is no timetable you are supposed to be keeping. Grief counselling at 101 Psychotherapy gives that loss room to exist, at the pace that suits you, in person in Vaughan or by secure video anywhere in Ontario.
- Free 30-minute assessment, and no referral needed
- Psychotherapists registered with CRPO and OAMHP
- Sessions from $100
- In person in Vaughan, or online across Ontario
- Support for any loss, however long ago
- Available in English, Russian and Farsi
Grief Does Not Follow a Timeline
Most people arrive at grief counselling worried that they are doing it wrong. They feel numb when they expected to feel devastated, or they feel relief and cannot say so out loud.
There is no correct order to any of this. The Canadian Mental Health Association Ontario is direct about it: there are no right or wrong ways to grieve, though some ways of coping help more than others. Grief can arrive as shock, anger, guilt, sadness or relief. It can settle in the body as tension, exhaustion or sleep that will not come. It can return in waves months after everyone else has moved on, set off by a song, a date on the calendar, or nothing you can name.
Counselling for grief and loss is not about reaching a finish line or letting go of the person you lost. It is about having somewhere to put what you are carrying.
The Losses We Support
Grief is not reserved for death, and a loss does not have to be recent to still be heavy. Our grief counsellors work with people facing:
- The death of someone close. A partner, parent, child, sibling, grandparent or friend.
- Anticipatory grief. The grieving that starts while someone is still here, during a serious illness.
- Sudden or traumatic loss. When a death is unexpected, grief and trauma can knot together.
- Pregnancy and infant loss. Miscarriage, stillbirth and the loss of a child carry a grief of their own.
- The end of a relationship. Separation, divorce, or family estrangement.
- Loss of health. A diagnosis, a change in ability, or the future that came with it.
- Pet loss. Losing an animal companion is a real bereavement and deserves to be treated as one.
- Loss of work or role. A job ending, retirement, or leaving a country and a life behind.
Grief also rarely travels alone. When low mood, worry or panic arrive alongside it, we can work with both. Read more about our approach to depression and to anxiety.
When Grief Becomes Prolonged Grief Disorder
For most people, grief softens over time without any clinical treatment at all. That is worth saying plainly, because the opposite message is everywhere.
For a smaller group it does not soften. The American Psychiatric Association added prolonged grief disorder to the DSM-5-TR in 2022, and reports an estimate that 4% to 15% of bereaved adults experience its persistent symptoms. For adults, the diagnosis is not considered until at least a year has passed since the death, and it involves intense longing or preoccupation, alongside at least three symptoms such as identity disruption, a marked sense of disbelief about the death, emotional numbness, intense loneliness, or a feeling that life is meaningless, nearly every day for at least the past month.
Prolonged grief, sometimes still called complicated grief, is not a failure of character or of effort. It is a recognized condition with evidence-based treatments, and approaches drawing on cognitive behavioural therapy and on narrative work have been found effective for it. If your grief feels stuck rather than slowly shifting, that is a reason to talk to someone, not a reason to wait longer.
If you are ever worried about your immediate safety, 9-8-8, the Suicide Crisis Helpline, takes calls and texts at any hour.
101 Psychotherapy – Always caring, always here
How Our Therapists Work With Grief
No single grief therapy works best for everyone, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. What helps depends on the loss, on the person, and on what you want from the work.
Our therapists draw on the approaches their training supports, including:
- Person-centred and compassion-focused work, where you set the direction and nobody tells you how you ought to feel.
- Meaning-making and narrative approaches, which help you keep a relationship with the person you lost rather than closing the door on them.
- Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), useful when guilt, self-blame or the endless what-ifs are doing the most damage.
- Mindfulness-based and trauma-informed somatic work, for grief that has settled in the body.
- Emotion-focused therapy, when the feelings are either overwhelming or stubbornly out of reach.
In practice these get blended rather than picked off a menu. Your therapist will explain what they are suggesting and why, and you can say no to any of it.
What Your First Session Looks Like
Booking grief counselling can feel like a bigger step than it is. It starts with a free 30-minute initial assessment, with no referral to arrange and nothing you have to be ready to say.
Your therapist will ask about the loss and about what has been hardest since. How much you say is entirely yours to decide. Tears are fine, silence is fine, and spending ten minutes on something else entirely is also fine. You will hear how confidentiality works and what sessions cost, and by the end you will both have a sense of whether this is the right fit. If it is not, nothing obliges you to come back.
What Grief Counselling Costs in Vaughan
Sessions start from $100. The initial 30-minute assessment costs nothing, and you will know the fee before booking rather than after. Sessions with a Registered Psychotherapist are not covered by OHIP. Extended health plans often reimburse psychotherapy in full or in part, and we issue receipts for those claims.
Free bereavement services also exist across the Greater Toronto Area, run by hospices and community organizations, and they do valuable work. Most cap the number of appointments or run as groups. Where we differ is continuity: individual sessions, one clinician who knows your story, carried on for as long as they are useful to you.
Book a Free ConsultationMeet Your Therapists
Grief and loss counselling at 101 Psychotherapy is delivered by therapists registered with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) and the Ontario Association of Mental Health Professionals (OAMHP).
Natalie Besharat
Clinician, Pediatric Care and Addictions Specialist, MSc, CCAC, CICAPP Candidate
Full profile
Grief Counselling Near Vaughan, and Online Across Ontario
We're here to support individuals and families across Vaughan, including Concord, Woodbridge, and Maple, and in nearby communities such as Aurora, Brampton, Markham, Mississauga, Milton, Oakville, Oshawa, and Richmond Hill, as well as Thornhill. We also welcome clients from across Toronto, including North York, Midtown, and Uptown Toronto. If you can't make it to our office, we offer virtual appointments across Ontario.
Visit us: 1520 Steeles Ave W #101A, Vaughan, ON L4K 3B9 (Steeles & Dufferin, Concord). Phone: (905) 597-2521
Common Questions About Grief Counselling
What kind of counselling is best for grief?
It depends on your loss and on you. Person-centred and meaning-making approaches suit people who mainly need space and a witness. Cognitive behavioural therapy helps most when guilt or intrusive what-if thinking is the loudest part. Somatic and mindfulness-based work suits grief that is showing up physically. Most clients get a blend, adjusted as things change.
When should you reach out instead of grieving on your own?
There is no wrong time to ask for support. CMHA Ontario lists some signs that extra help may be useful: not feeling better after several months of grieving, being unable to manage daily activities, difficulty concentrating, changes to sleeping or eating patterns, and losing interest in the people and activities you used to turn to. You do not have to wait until any of that applies to you.
What happens in your first grief counselling session?
Thirty free minutes, nothing to prepare. Expect to describe the loss, hear how the therapist would approach it, learn where confidentiality ends, and leave with a clear sense of whether to book a full session.
Can counselling help with a loss that happened years ago?
Yes. Grief has no expiry date, and old losses commonly resurface around anniversaries, milestones, or a new loss that reopens an earlier one. Plenty of people come to grief counselling years after a death, often for the first time. That is not unusual and it is not too late.
Do I need a referral to book grief counselling?
No. You can book directly, and no doctor’s referral is required. Start with the free 30-minute assessment and take it from there.
Book Your First Conversation
You do not have to arrive with the right words or a clear plan. Book a free initial assessment and we will start wherever you are.
