Grief Counselling in Inverness
Grief doesn’t follow the shape people expect it to. It arrives late, or in the wrong order, or over something you hadn’t realised you’d lost. And it tends to become inconvenient at exactly the point everyone else has moved on.
I’m Josh, a counsellor based in Inverness. Sessions are held online, by video call, so we can work together wherever you are.
Grief isn’t only bereavement
Most people come to grief counselling after a death. But the same process turns up after other losses, and it’s no less real for not having a funeral attached:
- The end of a marriage or a long relationship
- A diagnosis, yours or someone else’s
- Losing work that was part of who you were
- Children growing up and leaving
- Moving away from somewhere you belonged
- Losing a friendship without ever quite knowing why
- Time you can’t get back
If you’re grieving something that doesn’t come with sympathy cards, that doesn’t make it smaller. It often makes it lonelier.
What the “stages” get wrong
You may have heard that grief comes in stages, and that you work through them in order and come out the other side. That isn’t how most people experience it.
Grief is more like weather. It comes in, it passes, it comes back without warning eleven months later in a supermarket aisle because of a song. You can be functioning well and still be flattened by a Tuesday. None of that means you’re doing it wrong, and none of it means you’re going backwards.
What does change is your relationship to it. Not smaller, but more carryable.
How counselling helps
Often what people need most is somewhere they don’t have to manage anyone else’s feelings about it. Family grief gets tangled. You end up protecting each other, and nobody says the true thing.
Counselling is an hour where you don’t have to do that. Where you can say the ungenerous thought, or the relief, or the anger, without watching someone flinch. Where you can talk about the person as they actually were rather than the version everyone agreed on afterwards.
We go at your pace. There’s no requirement to reach acceptance, or closure, or any other tidy ending. Some things aren’t for resolving.
Working online from Inverness
I’m based in Inverness and work with people across the Highlands and beyond, online.
For grief, the practical side matters. In a smaller community, everyone knows. That can be a comfort and it can be exhausting, and sometimes what you want is to talk to someone who isn’t also at the funeral, isn’t going to mention it at the shops, and isn’t managing their own version of the same loss. Online sessions give you that distance while you stay somewhere familiar.
Common questions
How long should I wait before getting counselling?
There’s no correct interval. Some people want to talk within weeks, others years later when something reopens it. Both are normal. Grief that surfaces long afterwards is not a sign you did it wrong the first time.
I keep crying. Is that a problem?
No. Crying in counselling is not a loss of control that needs apologising for. It’s often the reason people came.
What if I feel relieved?
Relief is extremely common, particularly after a long illness or a difficult relationship, and it sits very awkwardly next to grief. It’s one of the things people most need somewhere safe to say out loud.
Are there other places I can turn?
Yes. Cruse Bereavement Support offers free help across the UK, and your GP can talk through what’s available locally. Counselling with me is one option among several, not the only one.
Somewhere to start
If you’d like to talk, send me a short message. You don’t need to explain it well, or be ready.
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