Top-Rated Grief Therapy Chicago

Takeaway: SG Therapy Group offers a supportive environment to help you process and understand your grief. Through personalized guidance, our clinicians can help you explore the complex emotions surrounding loss, offering tools and coping strategies to navigate difficult feelings. Therapy is a space where you can grieve at your own pace and address unique struggles such as guilt, anger, or isolation. With time, professional support can help you build emotional resilience and move toward healing and peace. 

Common struggles and symptoms of grief

An individual may experience grief for an array of reasons. The struggles and symptoms of grief can persist in ways that vary by individual. Grief can come from the death of a loved one, the ending of a romantic relationship, friendship, or relationship with a family member. Grief can look like the loss or retirement of a job, children moving out of the house for the first time, or watching parents grow older. It can also be the loss of a future you had planned or hoped for. Symptoms of grief can look like the following:

Behavioral Symptoms: 

  • Isolating from others 

  • Ceasing activities of daily living 

  • Avoiding reminder of the loss

Cognitive Symptoms:

  • Difficulty with memory 

  • Difficulty concentrating 

  • Struggling to make decisions

Because the reaction to grief is not a one-size fits all, it’s important to be aware of what some of the struggles and symptoms can look like. Although grief generally grows quieter over time, it is normal to utilize support from a therapist to help process these feelings and navigate the journey through the stages of grief.

Emotional Symptoms:

  • Sadness or deep sorrow 

  • Anger and frustration 

  • Guilt or Regret 

  • Anxiety 

Physical Symptoms:

  • Disturbances in sleep

  • Change in appetite  

  • Tightness in the chest

How Therapy Can Help

Reaching out to a therapist when grieving can help in multiple ways. It is important to know that when you are grieving, you don’t need to take on your pain or emotions alone. Your therapist can be that needed support to help guide you through the all the stages of grief.

SG Therapy Group can specifically help an individual experiencing grief in the following ways: 

  • Identifying what grief looks like

  • Emotional processing 

  • Coping strategies 

  • Validation of feelings 

  • Closure and acceptance 

  • Personal growth


If you feel as though you have or are experiencing grief in ways that are emotionally, physically, cognitively, or behaviorally difficult it could be helpful to reach out to one of our SG therapists to see how we could help.

2 Top-Rated Chicago Grief Therapists

Molly Adams

    • Specialties: First Responders, Trauma, Grief, Anxiety, Life Transitions, and PTSD

    • Modalities: CBT, emotionally focused therapy, Gottman Method, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, positive psychology, reality therapy, strengths-based therapy, trauma-focused therapy

    • Services: Individual Counseling & Counseling First Responders

    • Location: Telehealth

  • Read more about me here.

therapy for couples chicago

Aviva Brill

    • Specialties: Anxiety & Stress, Relationships, Aging Parents, Communication, Career & Workplace Transitions, Parenting, English & Spanish-Speaking

    • Modalities: Coaching, CBT, humanistic therapy, person-centered therapy, solution-focused brief therapy, strengths-based therapy, task-centered therapy

    • Services: Individual Counseling & Couples Counseling

    • Location: River North, Chicago & Telehealth

  • Read more about me here.

FAQs about therapy for grief

  • If you are experiencing long-term or short-term symptoms of grief that are interfering with your everyday life, it might be beneficial to reach out to a therapist to receive non-judgmental support to explore those feelings of grief as well as receive coping skill recommendations. 

  • Yes! If you're experiencing grief, seeing a therapist can be incredibly helpful. Therapy offers support in ways that friends and family may not be able to. It is not only a safe space for you to express your feelings, but it also serves as a designated place to heal at your own pace, to understand your grief on a deeper level, and to equip you with coping skills associated with your grief symptoms.

  • There are multiple different therapies that can be used to assess and treat the symptoms of grief. The following therapies are used by SG Therapy Group’s therapists to treat clients who are grieving. 

    Complicated Grief Therapy:

    This therapy helps individuals understand their loss, accept the reality of the loss, process thoughts and emotions, and introduce positive coping skills that can help be a support outside of the therapy session when grief feels heavy. 

    Acceptance and Commitment Therapy:

    The therapist will assist in acknowledging painful emotions that take place when grieving and will work with you to accept things as they are rather than trying to control them.

    Gestalt Therapy:

    This talk therapy helps client’s process through issues from past and present. This holistic approach utilizes the “here and now” to understand the client’s present situation and how to release feelings such as guilt and shame from the past. 

    A therapist should cater their approach when treating grief depending on the individual's situation, symptoms, and specific interferences of everyday life. Because grief affects people in all different ways, treatment should be able to be tailored to meet the needs of the individual client.

Get the mental health support you need to heal.

Whether you're navigating grief for the first time or have been dealing with it intermittently, we're here to support you. At SG Therapy Group, we offer both in-person and online therapy for individuals in the Chicago area and across Illinois.

With the guidance of our compassionate therapists, you can heal from the pain, sadness, and emotional weight of loss. If you're ready to start your journey toward healing and peace, we invite you to reach out and start your path forward today.