Grief & Bereavement Counseling · Ages 5 and up
Grief is experienced in many ways. There's no single right way, and no timeline, for moving through it.
Whether your loss is recent or long past, sudden or expected, grief has no single right shape and no set schedule. Support can help you carry it, and slowly find your way back to life.
What it looks like
When grief feels like too much
Grief can arrive in waves and take many forms. Wherever you are with it, you don't have to do it alone.
- Waves of sadness, anger, guilt, or numbness
- Trouble sleeping or concentrating
- A sense that the world has changed shape
- Grief that becomes complicated or prolonged
- Everyday life feeling hard to resume
- Feeling isolated in what you're carrying
A steady space to grieve at your own pace
Our clinicians offer a steady, compassionate space to process loss at your own pace, honoring what, or who, you've lost while gently helping you re-engage with life.
We draw on evidence-based approaches without ever rushing the work. Grief has its own rhythm, and we follow yours rather than imposing a timeline on it.
We support children, teens, and adults through loss, helping families find language for it together.
Our approach
How grief counseling works at LodeStone
A whole-picture, coordinated path, not a one-size-fits-all plan.
Understand the whole picture
We start by learning about your loss, how you're carrying it, and what feels hardest right now, without any push to move faster than you're ready.
Process loss at your pace
A compassionate, evidence-based space to honor what you've lost while gently re-engaging with the life that's still here.
Coordinate the care
Grief can bring depression, anxiety, and difficult life transitions along with it. When family support or added care helps, we bring it together thoughtfully.
Not sure where to start? Get answers and we will match you with the right clinician.
We provide this care in person at our Hinsdale and Woodstock offices, and by telehealth across Illinois. We are in-network with BCBS PPO, Blue Choice, Aetna, Medicare, and United Behavioral Health, and we verify your benefits before your first visit.
A closer look
Understanding grief, in its own time
Grief is not a disorder to cure. It's the natural response to losing someone or something that mattered, and it doesn't follow tidy stages. It arrives in waves: manageable one hour, breath-taking the next, sometimes triggered by a song, a smell, or nothing you can name. Counseling doesn't rush any of that. It gives grief a place to be witnessed, so it doesn't have to be carried alone.
When grief needs more support
There's no deadline for grieving, but sometimes grief gets stuck. If months on, the loss still dominates every day, if you're avoiding all reminders or organizing life around the absence, if guilt or if-onlys loop without mercy, or if the loss was sudden or traumatic, counseling can help grief begin to move again. Losses beyond death count too: divorce, health, a job, a future you'd planned on.
How children and families grieve
Children grieve in bursts, sad one moment, playing the next, and often through behavior and regression more than words. Teens may grieve sideways, through anger or withdrawal. Families sometimes need help finding shared language for a loss each member is carrying differently. We support all of it, together and separately, from age five up.
Your first steps
What to expect when you start
Reaching out while grieving takes real effort. We keep the first steps simple and unhurried.
Before your first visit
Start with the get-answers form or a phone call. We'll match you with a clinician whose manner fits you and verify your insurance benefits before your first visit, so cost is never a surprise.
Your first session
You can tell the story of your loss, or not yet. Some people need to talk about the person they lost; others need to talk about everything around the edges first. Your clinician follows your lead.
At your own pace
There's no program to complete and no schedule your grief must keep. The work is honoring what you lost while gently re-engaging the life that's still here, at whatever rhythm is honestly yours.
Good to know
Grief counseling: frequently asked questions
Is it too soon, or too late, to start grief counseling?+
Neither exists. Some people come in the first raw weeks; others come years later when a loss resurfaces at a milestone or a second loss reopens the first. Grief keeps its own calendar, and counseling meets you wherever on it you are.
How is grief counseling different from talking with family and friends?+
The people who love you are often grieving too, or anxious for you to feel better, so you may find yourself managing their feelings while carrying your own. A counselor has no need for you to be okay yet. That's a different kind of room, and for many people it's where the unsaid things finally get said.
Do you work with grieving children?+
Yes, from age five up. Children often grieve through play and behavior rather than conversation, so we use play therapy where it fits, and we help parents answer the hard questions kids ask at bedtime.
What if my grief has turned into depression?+
Grief and depression can shade into each other, and untangling them matters because the care differs. If the heaviness has stopped moving in waves and settled into numbness or hopelessness, we treat the depression alongside the grief, with medication support available when it helps.
Will my insurance cover grief counseling?+
We are in-network with BCBS PPO, Blue Choice, Aetna, Medicare, and United Behavioral Health, and we verify your benefits before your first visit so you know exactly what to expect.
Is telehealth suitable for grief counseling?+
Yes. Many grieving people prefer being at home, near their own tissues and their own tea, and video sessions honor that. We offer telehealth across Illinois and in-person care in Hinsdale and Woodstock.