Grief Counselling in Vancouver & Port Moody
What if grief isn’t something to “get over,” but a relationship we’re learning to tend to?
Grief counselling approaches loss this way – as something to honor, not escape. The world has a way of telling us how grief should look, feel, and most importantly, how long it should last. Maybe your work gave you three days off, expecting you to be business-as-usual when you got back. Maybe your friends and family were so supportive for a month and have not checked in since. Grief therapy provides consistent, compassionate support when others have moved on.
Maybe you’re here because everyone expects you to be “moving on” when you’re still trying to catch your breath.
The loss feels both distant and immediate – some days you can almost forget, and on others, it hits you like it just happened yesterday.
Your body holds grief in ways that aren’t always obvious. Sometimes it’s a heaviness in your chest that comes and goes, or anger that surprises you with its intensity. You might find yourself laughing at a memory and then feeling guilty for experiencing joy. The world might feel slightly muffled, like you’re moving through water while everyone else walks freely through air.
Maybe it’s not even a loss others recognize or understand.
The end of a dream you built your life around. The slow fade of a relationship that shaped who you are. The shifts in your identity due to chronic pain, fatigue, and life transitions. The grief of watching your community struggle, of losing a sense of safety in spaces that once felt like home. The ache of disconnection from culture, identity, language, land.
Beyond the “Stages of Grief”: A Different Understanding
Grief isn’t a problem to solve or a condition to cure. It’s not a linear path from denial to acceptance. It’s not even really about “letting go.”
Grief is a response to significance. It’s your heart’s recognition of what matters.
Think about it – we only grieve what we care about. Your grief is evidence of your capacity for connection, for meaning-making, for love. It’s an honoring of who and what matters to you, so what if instead of trying to “move on,” we learned how to move with our grief?
The Many Ways Grief Moves Through Our Lives
Grief rarely travels alone. When we sit with loss, we often find ourselves holding multiple layers of grief, each teaching us something about what matters:
Personal Grief
The intimate losses that reshape our inner landscape – a dream we’ve carried, an identity we’re letting go of, a future we imagined differently. Sometimes it’s the grief of becoming someone new, of no longer being able to move through the world in the ways we once did, of no longer being able to believe the world to be just, fair, and kind, of having to recognize our complicities in this system even with all our well-meaning intentions.
Relational Grief
An absence that echoes in everyday moments – an empty chair at the table, a phone number we can’t delete, a story we turn to share before remembering. Or perhaps it’s grieving the relationship we were supposed to have but couldn’t – the parent who should have been safe but wasn’t, the conversations that remain unspoken between estranged friends and partners, the support we needed but had to learn to give ourselves, the heaviness of having to carry the weight of what should have been.
Ancestral Grief
The weight our bodies inherited before we had words – the forced migrations, the disconnection of diaspora, the silenced stories, the complex feelings that arise as a settler on stolen land, especially for those whose own ancestors experienced displacement, the traditions, practices, and languages that were forced to skip generations. The grief of piecing together what was scattered, of learning to reclaim what was taken.
Systemic Grief
The exhaustion of navigating systems not built for our survival – the constant micro and macro aggressions, the doors that keep closing, the justice that feels overwhelmingly out of reach. The weariness of constantly translating yourself in spaces not designed for you, the rage and heartbreak when another act of systemic violence impacts your community, the bone-deep fatigue of fighting the same battles your parents and grandparents fought, the grief of watching spaces meant for healing become sites of further harm, the complexity of seeking care in systems that weren’t built to recognize your humanity.
Ecological Grief
The heartbreak of watching our earth relatives under attack – disappearing forests, polluted waters, changing climates. A grief that challenges colonial notions of separation between humans and the natural world that emerges as an anxiety and overwhelm of living through climate crisis, extreme weather, and environmental uncertainty. The weight of carrying knowledge about environmental destruction while living in systems that demand we ignore it. The deep ache of witnessing reciprocal ecological systems be transformed by extraction and commodification for capital gain.
Let’s tend to the complexity of grief with the care & the intentionality they’re bidding within us by:
- Developing a relationship with grief that feels sustainable, directional, and intentional
- Navigating the waves of emotion with more ease
- Finding ways to honor both the loss, what remains, and what could be
- Creating space for joy with grief, without guilt
- Building community that can hold your grief in all its nuances
How we work
The Venturous Approach to Grief Counselling in Vancouver & Port Moody
At Venturous Counselling, we understand that grief work isn’t about “getting over it” or developing better coping mechanisms (though tools for navigating intense emotions are part of what we offer). Instead, we’re interested in:
Creating Space for Complexity
Your grief doesn’t need to be simplified or rushed. We work with all the layers – personal, relational, political, systemic, ancestral, ecological – honoring how they weave together in your experience.
Finding Your Unique Relationship with Grief
Rather than prescribing how grief “should” look, we support you in discovering what helps you feel grounded, what rituals bring comfort, what meaning you want to make, and how to tend to both loss and life. After all, grief is love with nowhere to go. We’ll support you in figuring out where your love needs or wants to go.
Moving Beyond Isolation
Grief can feel incredibly lonely, especially when your experience doesn’t fit society’s narrow scripts. We create space for grief to be witnessed and held in community, challenging the idea that we should grieve alone.
Reclaiming Cultural Wisdom
Many of us come from cultures with rich traditions around grief and mourning that colonization tried to erase. We support you in reconnecting with practices that feel authentic and meaningful.
Our grief therapy integrates multiple healing modalities,
including somatic practices, nature-based sessions, and expressive arts therapy.
Our counsellors bring both professional and living experience to this work. We are Master’s level practitioners with specialized training in grief counselling, anti-oppressive, intersectional feminist, and anti-colonial frameworks. Most importantly, we understand firsthand the importance of finding therapy that doesn’t require you to explain or justify your identity and experiences.
Sessions are offered virtually across BC, and in-person in Vancouver, Burnaby, and Port Moody.
How much does grief therapy cost in Vancouver?
Our grief counselling rates range from $160-$240 per session.
We offer direct billing to most extended health insurance plans and accept funding through CVAP, ICBC, WorkBC, FNHA, and Autism Funding. Book a free 15-minute consultation to chat about how we can support you in your grieving process.
Get support through Grief Counselling in Vancouver, Port Moody or virtually with these therapists:
We offer direct billing to select insurance providers and funded programs. Start with a free 15-minute video conversation to find out more.
Each of our counsellors brings a different lens to Grief Counselling.
Here’s how they approach it, so you can sense who might feel like the right fit.
Renee Liang (she/her)
Lower Cost Counselling
Supervised by Bhupie Dulay, MA, RCC-ACS & Abby Chow, MA, RCC-ACS
Work with Renee if you think about everything deeply and carry responsibility for things that were never yours to hold. If you like to reflect, see things from a new angle, and want someone honest and steady in your corner — often with some humour when things get heavy. Renee works with reflective, insight-oriented people navigating self-doubt, cultural complexity, relational trauma, and cultural grief. Her approach is direct but not directive: she’ll say the straightforward thing, then work with you on how it actually fits, because you know yourself best. She pays attention to the systems around you, too, helping sort what’s yours to carry from what isn’t.
This is not therapy that hands you the answers, takes an expert stance, or rushes you toward quick solutions. It centres introspection over tidy conclusions, and treats healing as something that isn’t linear — there’s no shame in revisiting the same ground again.
Renee works with youth and adults through individual and relationship counselling.
Art, Play + Somatic Psychotherapy
Sarada Bhagavatula, MA, RCC (she/her)
If your grief lives in your body more than your words, Sarada works with it there. Her sessions draw on somatic work and expressive arts to create space for grief that hasn’t found language yet. She is especially skilled at holding grief that has been moving too fast, or grief that the world has not given enough room to. Her approach is gentle and unhurried, and well suited to people who need permission to slow down before they can honor and feel their grief fully.
Work with Sarada if you’re worn down, emotionally overloaded, or disconnected from yourself, and you want support that feels gentle and spacious, without being passive.
Art + Walk and Talk Therapy
Julianna Lei, MCP, RCC (she/her)
If your grief is about identity, belonging, or the losses that come with navigating multiple worlds, Julianna works with the stories underneath the loss. She holds space for grief that is cultural, intergenerational, or connected to the slow fade of who you thought you were going to be. Her sessions draw on narrative practice and art therapy, and suit people who need to make meaning before they can move through their grief.
Work with Julianna if you’ve spent a lot of your life translating yourself between cultures, roles, or worlds, and you want room to think out loud without flattening the complexity.
Art + Somatic Psychotherapy
Parveen Boyal, MCP, RCC (she/her)
If your grief is wrapped up in how you’re showing up for others while privately falling apart, Parveen works with that specific tension. The grief of performing okayness. The loss that comes with realizing something about yourself or your relationships that you cannot unsee. Her sessions are direct and compassionate, and create space for the things people have been managing silently, using art and body awareness alongside honest conversation.
Work with Parveen if anxiety about how you’re seen in the world has started running the show, and you want a space to slow down, untangle those stories, and build something more compassionate in their place.
EMDR, Somatic + Walk & Talk Therapy
Jess Picco, MCP, RCC (she/her)
If your grief is connected to identity shifts, relationship changes, or the cumulative weight of existing in spaces that were never built for you, Jess works with the grief that sits underneath those experiences. She draws on EMDR, art therapy, and an experimental approach that suits people who want to explore how they heal rather than follow a set path. Her sessions work well for people who want more clarity as they’re grieving something that feels bigger than it might seem.
Work with Jess if you’ve spent a long time being told who you should be, and you’re more interested in figuring out what actually fits.
Q&A
Grief Therapy in Vancouver & Port Moody FAQs
How do I know if I need grief counselling?
If you’re feeling the impact of a loss – whether recent or from long ago, whether “big” or “small” by society’s standards – you deserve support. There’s no timeline for grief, and all losses are valid.
What if my grief doesn't look "normal"?
There’s no such thing as “normal” grief. Your experience is uniquely yours, shaped by your relationship to what was lost, your culture, your support system, and many other factors. We work with your grief exactly as it is.
What types of grief do you work with beyond death and dying?
We work with all forms of grief, including the loss of relationships, dreams, identities, health, safety, and belonging. This includes ancestral grief from disconnection due to colonization and displacement, systemic grief from navigating oppression and discrimination, ecological grief from environmental destruction, and personal grief from life transitions, chronic illness, or unfulfilled expectations. We also support people grieving the loss of innocence, cultural practices, languages, and the grief that comes with recognizing injustice in systems we once trusted. All losses are valid and deserving of support.
How is your approach to grief counselling different from traditional therapy?
Our approach moves beyond the “stages of grief” model to understand grief as a relationship rather than a problem to solve. We don’t focus on “getting over it” or “moving on” but on learning to move with grief in sustainable ways. Our anti-oppressive framework recognizes how systemic factors – racism, homophobia, transphobia, colonization – impact grief experiences. We integrate cultural wisdom and practices that colonization tried to erase, and we understand that grief often travels with other experiences like trauma, anxiety, and depression. Our justice-oriented approach honors the complexity of loss within larger systems of oppression.
Do you offer grief counselling for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ individuals?
Yes, our practice is specifically designed to support SDQTBIPOC+ communities who often experience unique forms of grief related to discrimination, cultural disconnection, and systemic violence. Our counsellors understand how racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of oppression complicate grief experiences. We provide culturally responsive therapy that doesn’t require you to explain or justify your identity. We understand ancestral grief, the grief of code-switching and masking, and the particular heartbreak of losing safety in spaces that should have been affirming. Learn more about our team of counsellors.
Can grief counselling help with complicated or prolonged grief?
Absolutely. We don’t believe in timelines for grief or judge experiences as “complicated” simply because they don’t fit societal expectations. Whether your grief feels stuck, overwhelming, or different from what others expect, we provide support without pathologizing your experience. We work with grief that feels frozen, grief that comes in waves years later, grief that’s mixed with relief or anger, and grief that others don’t understand or validate. Our approach honors your unique relationship with loss and helps you find ways to tend to grief that feel sustainable and meaningful.
What should I expect in my first grief counselling session?
Your first session begins with a free 15-minute consultation where we’ll discuss your specific grief experience and match you with the right counsellor. In your first full session, we’ll explore what brings you to therapy, the nature of your loss, and how grief is showing up in your life. We’ll also discuss your cultural background, support systems, and what kind of support feels most helpful. There’s no pressure to share more than feels comfortable, and we’ll follow your lead on pacing. Sessions are 50 minutes and can be virtual or in-person at our Vancouver or Port Moody offices.
What is grief counselling and how does it work?
Grief counselling in Vancouver and Port Moody helps you navigate loss in all its forms – not just death, but the end of relationships, dreams, identities, and ways of being in the world. Our approach recognizes that grief isn’t a problem to solve but a relationship to tend to. Through integrating talk therapy with evidence-based therapies like EMDR, somatic therapy, nature-based therapy, and expressive arts, we help you develop a different relationship with grief – one that honors both loss and life. Sessions can be virtual across BC or in-person at our Vancouver and Port Moody locations.
How do you work with cultural and spiritual aspects of grief?
We understand that grief often involves cultural practices, spiritual beliefs, and community traditions that are essential to healing. We welcome and honor these aspects of your experience, integrating them with other therapeutic modalities in ways that feel authentic to you. Many of us come from cultures with rich traditions around grief and mourning that colonization tried to erase, and we support you in reconnecting with practices that feel meaningful. We also recognize that some people are navigating grief while questioning or exploring their spiritual beliefs, and we hold space for that complexity too.
Can grief counselling help with physical symptoms and trauma responses?
Yes, grief often manifests physically through symptoms like fatigue, sleep disturbances, changes in appetite, muscle tension, and immune system impacts. Our somatic therapy approach specifically addresses how grief is held in the body. We help you understand your body’s responses to loss, develop nervous system regulation skills, and use body-based interventions to support healing. We also work with the trauma that often accompanies loss – whether from the circumstances of the loss itself or from how others have responded to your grief.
Do you offer grief counselling for children, teens, and families?
We work with individuals 16 and older, including teens navigating grief from family changes, friend loss, identity shifts, or global events like climate change. We understand that young people often experience disenfranchised grief – losses that aren’t recognized or supported by adults. We also support adults grieving their own childhood experiences, family relationships, or parenting challenges. While we don’t provide family therapy, we can work with individual family members and help them navigate grief within their family systems.
How long does grief counselling typically take?
Grief doesn’t follow a timeline, and neither does grief counselling. Some people find support in a few sessions during acute grief periods, while others benefit from longer-term work as they navigate the ongoing relationship with loss. Many clients work with us intensively for a few months and then return periodically as grief shifts or during anniversaries and difficult times. We follow your lead on what feels most supportive, and there’s no pressure to commit to a specific timeline. Book a consultation to discuss what might work best for your situation.
What if my grief doesn't feel "normal" or acceptable to others?
There’s no such thing as “normal” grief, and we work with experiences that others might not understand or validate. This includes grief over relationships that were complicated or harmful, relief mixed with sadness, anger as part of grief, or grief that doesn’t follow expected timelines. We also support people grieving losses that society doesn’t recognize – like the end of a dream, a miscarriage, pet loss, or changes in ability or identity. Your grief is valid exactly as it is, and you don’t need to justify or explain your experience to receive support.
I'm worried about crying the whole session.
Your tears are welcome here. There’s no pressure to “keep it together” in sessions. We’ll help you develop tools to feel grounded even as you explore difficult emotions.
Will grief counselling make me forget or "get over" my loss?
The goal isn’t to forget or “get over” your loss, but to develop a different relationship with it. Many people find they can hold both their grief and their growth, remembering what matters while continuing to live fully.
Can I grieve a career I haven't lost yet?
Yes. Anticipatory grief is mourning that begins before the loss is complete, and it’s a well-recognized experience in grief literature. With careers, it often shows up as flatness, loss of interest in work you used to care about, or a dislocated sadness while your employment is still stable. It’s frequently mistaken for anxiety or burnout. You don’t need the loss to be finalized to deserve support with it.
What's the difference between virtual and in-person grief counselling in Vancouver and Port Moody?
Both options can be equally effective. Virtual sessions offer convenience, accessibility, and comforts of being in your own space, while in-person sessions might feel more grounding for some. We can explore what feels right for you, and you’re welcome to switch between the two.
What if I need to cancel or reschedule?
Life happens! We ask for 24 hours notice for cancellations or changes. This helps us maintain accessibility for our community and sustainability for our practice.
Get Matched
Find Your Best-Fit Counsellor
We offer direct billing to select insurance providers & funded programs. Start with a free 15-minute video conversation or get your personalized recommendations straight to your inbox, with this 3-minute form.
Related Support
- Trauma therapy when grief is entangled with harm, violation, or experiences that shattered safety
- Burnout therapy when grief meets systemic exhaustion and there’s no room to fall apart
- Identity and personal growth counselling when loss reshapes who you are and who you’re becoming
- Chronic pain and fatigue counselling when grief shows up in the body as heaviness, tension, or illness
- Anxiety therapy for the hypervigilance and dread that grief can leave in its wake
- Somatic therapy for moving grief through the body when words aren’t enough
- Expressive art therapy for processing grief through creation when language falls short
Anticipatory, Occupational Grief
Five, ten, twenty years of expertise, and then a shift in your industry reclassifies what you’ve worked hard to learn as something that can be automated for pennies on the dollar, bringing about a grief for a future you had good reason to expect, and for a professional self that other people used to recognize on sight.It’s a strange grief because nothing has technically been lost yet. You may still have the job. You may still have the title. But there’s a flatness where there used to be interest, a reluctance to talk about work at dinner, a mourning you can’t quite point to.
AI has made this more common, and more disorienting, because the threat has no date. Recognized forms of grief often has an event. This one has a forecast. You’re mourning on a timeline nobody will confirm, which means you can’t schedule the response and you can’t tell yourself it’s over. Some of what makes it so heavy is that so many of us were taught to measure our worth by what we produce. When the work changes, the grief isn’t only for a job; it’s for a whole sense of who you were allowed to be. That’s a lot to carry, and it makes sense that it aches.
This grief also gets misread as anxiety, by the people around you and sometimes by therapists. Coping strategies aimed at the wrong aspect leave folx feeling like they’ve failed at something. Grief doesn’t want to be strategized or reasoned with. It wants witnessing, it wants unpacking, and it wants somewhere to put the dedication and the vision of your life that has nowhere to go. If this sounds familiar, read more about anticipatory grief and career displacement, or about AI anxiety therapy and job displacement therapy in Vancouver and Port Moody.
Explore this Topic
Grief moves through more than death. It lives in identity shifts, systemic exhaustion, ancestral loss, and the losses the world doesn’t always recognize. These articles explore the full landscape of what grief carries and what it means to do grief work that doesn’t rush you toward getting over it.
- Grief counselling in Vancouver start here: a guide to finding grief support that fits your experience
- What is grief work therapy: moving beyond ‘getting over it’ and into what grief is actually asking of you
- Why traditional grief support isn’t enough and what to look for instead
- Finding grief support that honours your whole experience, not just the parts that fit a stage model
- Grief work therapy for the losses the world doesn’t recognize
- How a grief therapist supports ancestral and systemic loss
- Going analog in the age of AI: grief, disconnection, and what we lose when everything gets optimized
- Self-forgiveness: tending to the grief underneath shame, regret, and the wish to have done differently
- Grief and injury: when losing physical capacity means grieving who you were before
- Burnout or depression: when grief hides inside exhaustion and numbness
- Anticipatory grief and career displacement: mourning a future that hasn’t been taken yet
We are uninvited settlers
occupying the stolen, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), Qayqayt, and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) peoples. Our relationship with these lands dictates our commitment to understanding and responding to the ongoing impacts of colonization in our practices in and out of the counselling room.
Learn more about the land you’re occupying at native-land.ca