There’s a version of grief we’re all handed, the one with the five stages, the orderly timeline, the expectation that things will feel better by a certain point. If that version resonates with your experience, that’s wonderful. But for many people, grief doesn’t work that way. It shows up sideways, circles back when you thought it was gone, and refuses to follow any script.
If you’re in Vaughan or the surrounding area and struggling with loss that doesn’t fit a neat narrative, grief counselling might be exactly what you need. Not to rush you through something, but to help you carry it with more ease.
Why the “5 Stages of Grief” Model Is Incomplete
The Kübler-Ross model, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, was groundbreaking when it was first introduced in 1969. But it was based on research with people facing terminal illness, and it was never meant to be a universal roadmap for all grief, or a checklist to move through in sequence.
The model has since been widely misapplied. People use it to measure whether their grief is “normal,” worry when they can’t identify which stage they’re in, and feel like they’ve failed if acceptance doesn’t arrive on schedule.
Here’s what the research actually tells us: grief is non-linear, highly individual, and deeply shaped by the nature of the loss, your relationship with the person, your personal history, your support system, and dozens of other factors. Some people grieve intensely for a short time. Others carry low-level grief for years. Many cycle back through feelings they thought they’d moved past.
None of this is wrong. It’s just grief.
Complicated Grief vs. Normal Grief
All grief is valid. But sometimes grief becomes “complicated”, a clinical term for grief that is persistently intense, that significantly disrupts daily functioning, or that doesn’t shift in any meaningful way over time.
Signs that grief may be complicated include:
- Persistent difficulty accepting the reality of the loss, even after many months
- Intense longing that doesn’t ease over time
- Feeling that life is meaningless or that the future holds nothing without this person
- Significant difficulty engaging in daily activities, relationships, or self-care
- Withdrawing entirely from social connection
- Feeling stuck, like grief has become the lens through which everything is filtered
Complicated grief isn’t a sign of weakness or loving “too much.” It’s a sign that the loss was profound and that you may need more support than time alone can provide. Grief therapy, especially grief counselling in Vaughan and the surrounding area, can make a real difference.
How Grief Shows Up Unexpectedly
One of the things that catches people off guard is how grief reactivates at unexpected moments, sometimes years after a loss.
Anniversaries and milestones
The first year after a loss is full of painful “firsts”, the first holiday, the first birthday, the first anniversary of the death. But the second, fifth, and tenth year can bring waves of grief too, especially around these dates. This is normal, and it doesn’t mean you’re not healing, it means you loved someone.
Life transitions
Graduating, getting married, having a baby, buying a house, joyful events can be tinged with grief for the person who isn’t there to share them. This “grief bursting” alongside happiness can feel confusing, even wrong. It isn’t. It’s the echo of love.
Secondary losses
When you lose someone, you often lose more than one person, you lose the relationship, the role, the shared future, sometimes the social connections that came with that person. Recognising these secondary losses is an important part of the work of grieving.
Sensory triggers
A song. A smell. The way light falls in a particular room. Grief can be triggered by things that feel impossibly small, and the resulting wave can feel like it came from nowhere. It didn’t. It came from love.
What Grief Therapy Actually Involves
Many people assume grief therapy means sitting in a room crying about the person you lost. Sometimes it does involve that, and there’s real value in having a safe, held space to release. But grief counselling is also a lot more.
At InnerSight Psychotherapy, our therapists draw on a range of approaches depending on your needs:
- Narrative Therapy, helping you tell the story of the person and the loss in a way that honours them while making room for you to move forward
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), building the capacity to hold grief without it consuming everything
- EMDR, particularly helpful when a loss was sudden, traumatic, or involved witnessing something distressing. Learn more about trauma-informed therapy at InnerSight.
- Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), especially useful for couples navigating a shared loss (miscarriage, losing a child, losing a parent)
- IFS (Internal Family Systems), exploring the different parts of you that are grieving, the angry part, the one that’s numbing out, the one that misses them every day
Grief therapy isn’t about “getting over” the person you lost. That’s not a realistic or meaningful goal. It’s about learning to carry the loss in a way that allows you to also carry joy, connection, and a sense of future alongside it.
When to Seek Grief Counselling
There’s no threshold you need to meet before reaching out. You don’t have to be in crisis. You don’t have to be unable to function. You’re allowed to seek grief counselling simply because grief is hard and you don’t want to do it alone.
That said, these are signs that reaching out sooner rather than later might be especially important:
- Your grief is significantly impacting your work, relationships, or health
- You’re using alcohol or substances to cope more than you’d like
- You’re experiencing thoughts of not wanting to be here (if this is you right now, please call or text 988, Canada’s Suicide Crisis Helpline)
- You feel like the people in your life are “over it” and you’re not, and the loneliness of that is hard
- You want support that doesn’t put a burden on the people who are also grieving
Grief counselling in Vaughan, Ontario is available at InnerSight, in person at our Vaughan (HHC Centre) and Woodbridge (270 Purple Creek Road, Unit 202) locations, as well as virtually across Ontario.
You Don’t Have to Grieve Alone
Loss is one of the most universal human experiences, and one of the loneliest. Therapy doesn’t take the grief away. But it can make the journey less isolating, help you understand what you’re carrying, and give you a space where your loss is witnessed and honoured.
We believe in better. Not a better that erases what happened, but a better where you feel capable, connected, and like the future still holds something worth moving toward.
We offer a free 20-minute consultation, no referral needed, no commitment required. Just a conversation to see if we’re the right fit.
- 📞 Call us: (905) 553-9507
- 💻 Book online: psychotherapyclinic.janeapp.com
- 🌐 Learn more: Individual Therapy at InnerSight Psychotherapy
InnerSight Psychotherapy, Vaughan, Woodbridge, Barrie, and virtual across Ontario. Believe in Better.