Grief Counseling
Find Comfort, Understanding, and Healing after Loss in Livermore and all of California Online
Are You Feeling Stuck in Grief and Don’t Know How to Move On?
Do you find you or a loved one are feeling stuck in cycles of crying and despair? Are you wondering if you will every feel “normal” again? Perhaps you look at the world around us and wonder what’s happened? Despite setting aside time for reflection and perhaps even connection, nothing seems to be working.
Perhaps you’ve been judged for how strongly you or your child are grieving. Or maybe people have thoughts about how long you’ve been grieving.
As if grief has an expiration date.
Alternatively, maybe you are the parent of a child whose grief not only looks like sadness, but huge bouts of fear, anger, and even silliness. These feelings can be confusing to you and also to others. You are wondering if all of these feelings at seemingly inappropriate times are OK.
You may even feel embarrassed by grief. Sometimes, you find that you hide your grief in an effort to protect yourself. At other times, you hide it to protect those around you. I don’t want to burden them!
We Grieve Differently, and There’s No Timeline
The mix of emotions, the ups and downs, the cycles of hope and despair—all of these challenges have you thinking there is something wrong. And just when you think you are feeling better, the rug is pulled out from under you again. So it’s hard to enjoy even the moments of connection and hope that you’ve been longing for.
At Wonderment Family Therapy, we understand that you want to move on with your life. We also understand that it isn’t always easy to let go. We know that grief can invite a crisis of narrative—Who am I?—and a crisis of meaning.
Grief demands both rewriting the narratives of who we are and making new meaning out of life.
With grief counseling, you or your child can safely explore your inner feelings and express yourself in a way that helps you move forward both with a sense of who you are now and a new sense of meaning in life.
Have questions or want to schedule a consultation? Reach out today, we’re here to help.
Expressive Arts, Sandtray, Play Therapy, and Grief
Emotional pain from grief and trauma often exists in the realm “beyond words.” By incorporating expressive arts and sandtray, grief counseling offers tools for expressing your feelings that transcend words. These tools allow the wisdom of our unconscious mind to speak directly to you.
Further restricting the capacity for words to speak for grief are children’s smaller vocabularies. In addition to the arts, play therapy helps children express themselves in child grief counseling.
Registered Play Therapists use toys and play to facilitate children’s expression of and meaning-making related to grief. Dr. Keller is a Registered Play Therapist trained to harness the therapeutic powers of play to facilitate growth and healing in children. As a Registered Sand Therapist Consultant/Trainer, Dr. Keller also offers supervision and training to her staff for this modality.
Yoga-Informed Healing
Dr. Keller brings the body into the healing process through her work as a Registered Yoga Teacher. She integrates Yoga Nidra, a deeply restful and restorative practice that supports nervous system regulation and emotional processing. Dr. Keller also offers group classes that center on rest, self-compassion, and embodied healing.
She recently published a chapter in Disenfranchised Grief (Routledge, 2024): Keller, E. R. (2024). “Our Bodies: Holders of Unspoken Grief.”
In this chapter, she explores how grief lives in the body and how yoga can support healing when words fall short.
Take the Next Step
Get the support you need to grieve and make new meaning in life.
We Seek Grief Counseling for:
Grieving the death of a loved one
Grieving the childhood you didn’t have
- The loss of a career
Struggling with overwhelming or complicated grief
Coping with grief after miscarriage, infertility, or pregnancy loss
Experiencing grief related to illness or loss of health
- Ambiguous grief and loss
Grief: Mind, Body, and Soul
Grief impacts every part of life—not just emotions, but the body and spirit as well. Alongside sadness, people may experience physical tension, exhaustion, and even spiritual questioning. Some describe grief as a “soul wound,” especially when their loss isn’t acknowledged by others.
When grief goes unrecognized or unsupported, the pain can deepen. Rather than feeling comforted, many grievers feel isolated or misunderstood. Some may begin to question their beliefs, sense of purpose, or connection to spirituality.
Yes. It’s OK to question everything.
In grief counseling, clients explore these layers of grief. Instead of rushing the process, we meet each story with curiosity and care. Together, we hold space for the body’s wisdom, the mind’s search for understanding, and the spirit’s longing for peace.
Recent Blog Posts on Grief Counseling
Trusting the Process: The Power of Expressive Arts Therapy for Children
At Wonderment Family Therapy, we know how hard it is to watch your child struggle with big feelings they don’t have the words for. If you’re here, chances are you’re searching for meaningful support—and maybe even wondering if expressive arts therapy for children...
How to Support Your Child or Teen When Big Emotions Show Up
As a play therapist working with children and teens, I know that the work I do with them is only part of the story. To truly support children, I partner closely with the people who know and love them best—their caregivers. That’s why I begin every therapeutic...
Children’s Grief Therapy: What Play Can Teach Us About Loss
We've spent many years sitting on the floor with grieving children. We've worked with children navigating sudden loss, sibling death, parental death, suicide, and long-term illness. No two stories are ever the same—and neither are the ways children express their...