Grief & Loss Counselling · Online in Six Provinces
Grief is love with nowhere to go. We can help you carry it.
Grief doesn't follow a timeline or a checklist. Whether you've lost a person, a relationship, a life you imagined, or a part of yourself — online grief therapy is a steady place to bring it, at whatever pace it takes. Sessions are by video, in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
If you need immediate support
If you or someone you know is in crisis or having thoughts of self-harm, please reach out right away — you don't have to wait for a therapy appointment.
- 988 Suicide Crisis Helpline — call or text 988 (24/7, Canada-wide)
- BC Crisis Line — 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433), 24/7
- HealthLink BC — call 811 to speak with a registered nurse any time
- Emergency — call 911 if there is immediate danger
Grief can feel like:
Overwhelming sadness that comes in waves — sometimes without warning
Numbness, disbelief, or feeling like you're going through the motions
Anger — at the situation, at others, or at yourself
Guilt about things said, unsaid, done, or undone
Physical exhaustion, loss of appetite, or difficulty sleeping
Withdrawing from people and activities
Difficulty imagining a future without what was lost
Complicated grief — when the loss brings relief, ambivalence, or unresolved pain
If any of these resonate, you are not alone — and you do not have to carry it by yourself.
Grief therapy can help you:
Process your loss at your own pace, without pressure to 'move on'
Make meaning of what happened without minimizing the pain
Manage the physical and emotional exhaustion of grief
Navigate complicated feelings — guilt, anger, relief, love
Maintain a continuing bond with what was lost while still living fully
Find a way to carry grief rather than be buried by it
Our therapeutic approach
We tailor every approach to what you actually need. No single method works for everyone — we draw from a range of evidence-based tools to find what fits you. Which of these are available to you depends on the clinician you are matched with; we will be specific about that at your free consultation.
Specialist-led grief care. Grief work at TEO is anchored by Rola Shbib, BSW (Hons), RSW (Ontario) — who holds an honours degree in thanatology, the formal study of grief, dying, and bereavement, alongside years of front-line crisis and suicide-prevention work. Grief therapy and bereavement counselling are available online in every province we serve, in English and Arabic.
Narrative Therapy
Helps you tell the story of your loss and your relationship with what was lost — honoring what mattered without being trapped by it.
IFS
Supports the different parts of you responding to grief — the part that rages, the part that shuts down, the part that misses terribly — with compassion and understanding.
Meaning-Making
Explores how to integrate loss into your life story in a way that honours what was lost while allowing for growth and continued living.
EMDR
Helpful when grief is complicated by trauma — sudden or violent death, traumatic circumstances, or when the loss triggers older unresolved pain.
Somatic Support
Grief lives in the body. Somatic approaches help with the physical heaviness, exhaustion, and tension that grief carries.
CBT
Gently challenges the guilt-based or self-critical thoughts that often complicate grief — 'I should have done more', 'I don't deserve to feel okay'.
All loss is valid — not just death
Grief is not only for death. People grieve the end of relationships, the loss of a job or identity, a diagnosis, a miscarriage, estrangement from family, the childhood they deserved but didn't have, or the future they expected. Disenfranchised grief — grief that others don't acknowledge or validate — can be especially isolating. In therapy, all of it counts. There is no loss too small or too complicated to grieve.
If you need immediate support
If you or someone you know is in crisis or having thoughts of self-harm, please reach out right away — you don't have to wait for a therapy appointment.
- 988 Suicide Crisis Helpline — call or text 988 (24/7, Canada-wide)
- BC Crisis Line — 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433), 24/7
- HealthLink BC — call 811 to speak with a registered nurse any time
- Emergency — call 911 if there is immediate danger
You might also need
- Breakup and separation support — grief that follows a relationship rather than a death
Grief has no stages to clear and no timetable
The familiar stage model is traced back to work with people who were dying, not to the people left behind. It was borrowed, then hardened into a sequence, and someone can arrive at a first session apologising for being in the wrong stage. There is no wrong stage.
You can feel level for a stretch and then be flattened in a supermarket aisle. You can hold steady through the funeral and come apart on an ordinary Tuesday. Nothing here works towards a date when you are supposed to be finished. What sessions can take on is the part that has jammed: the conversation you keep rehearsing, the guilt that will not move, the sentence you cannot yet say out loud.
Relief, anger and guilt do not disqualify it
Some losses end something that was hard. A long illness. A parent who hurt you. An addiction that took the person long before their body went. Relief arrives, and then shame about the relief.
Or anger — at them for dying, at the people who handled it badly, at yourself. Or guilt about the last conversation, or about the one that never happened. None of it has to be tidied into a single feeling before you bring it in. Two things can be true at once: you loved them, and part of you can breathe now.
Mohamad Shabib holds IFS Levels 1 and 2 training. The working idea there is that the relieved part and the guilty part can both be heard, rather than one of them being appointed the real you.
The losses nobody holds a funeral for
A relationship ends and both people are still alive. You leave a country and lose the street noise, the food, the version of yourself who was funny in your first language, and everyone who knew you before. A parent is alive and no longer knows your name; you sit with them, you are already grieving, and you cannot say so, because they are right there in the chair. Some clinicians call that last one ambiguous loss — a loss with no endpoint to mark.
Death comes with a script. Time away from work. A service. Food left on the doorstep. Someone asking how you are a month later. These losses come with none of that, so the grief goes quiet, and when it does show it gets read as being dramatic or as not being over it yet. The absence of a ritual is not evidence that the loss was small.
Anniversary reactions, and the dates you did not circle
The body keeps a calendar you never agreed to. The run-up to a date can be heavier than the date itself, and the drop can land afterwards, once everyone assumes you got through it. It is not only the anniversary of a death: it can be the diagnosis date, the last good day, the first snow, a birthday with nobody in it, the smell of a particular soap.
Dates you know about can be planned for — whether you work that day, who you tell, what you do with the hour you already know will be bad. Sessions can also be placed around a date rather than kept to a steady weekly rhythm, if that is what would actually help.
Who you would be working with
Three clinicians take grief work at TEO. Everything listed below is training, not certification — those are different things, and we would rather be precise about it than flatter the list.
Rola Shbib
Registered Social Worker (Ontario). Her honours degree is in thanatology, and her working background is crisis intervention, suicide prevention and addictions.
Mohamad Shabib, MACP, CCC
A Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) with the CRPO — an Ontario registration — who works with clients in all six provinces the practice serves. He holds Advanced EMDR training through EMDRIA, IFS Levels 1 and 2, CBT for Trauma Levels 1 and 2, and DBT training. Sessions in English or Arabic.
Alison Shaji, RCC (BCACC)
Works with clients in British Columbia. She holds EMDR, CBT and DBT training, and works psychoanalytically, including inner-child and shadow work. Sessions in English, Hindi or Malayalam.
The practical shape of it
Everything is by video; there is no office. Sessions run noon to 9pm Pacific, seven days — 3pm to midnight in Ontario, 4:30pm to 1:30am in Newfoundland and Labrador. Sixty minutes at $150 for an individual session, $175 for couples, after a free fifteen-to-twenty-minute consultation. No referral is needed. Cancellations need twenty-four hours' notice; later cancellations and missed sessions are charged in full, which is worth knowing before a hard week arrives.
Common questions
The loss I am grieving was not a death. Can I still book?
Yes. A separation, an estrangement you chose, a pregnancy, a country left behind, a parent who is alive and no longer knows you — none of it has to be reframed as something else first. Nothing needs to be written out or explained in advance to get a consultation.
It has been years. Is it too late to start?
No. There is no window that closes and no point at which grief is scheduled to be over, so being years out is not a reason to stay away. People come after an anniversary lands badly, or after a second loss reopens the first one. Starting late is not starting wrong.
Can you tell me whether this is normal grief or something more, or prescribe something for it?
No, and it is worth being blunt about that. Counsellors do not diagnose, screen or assess, so nobody here will be sorting your grief into a category. Prescriptions come from a physician or a nurse practitioner; that conversation belongs with them, and therapy can run alongside it.
Will insurance cover grief sessions?
TEO can direct-bill a number of plans, including Pacific Blue Cross, CVAP and plans on the TELUS eClaims network. You pay for the session and receive an insurance-ready receipt afterwards to submit yourself. No provincial health plan covers private counselling, so this is either an extended health plan or out of pocket. Check your plan against the clinician you would see: for Mohamad, ask specifically whether the Qualifying category of Registered Psychotherapist is included; for Rola, ask about Registered Social Worker; for Alison, ask about Registered Clinical Counsellor. The plan's wording is what decides it. A few reduced-fee spots are held — ask at the consultation.
What can I actually say in a session, and what leaves the room?
You can say the ugly version: the relief, the anger at someone who has died, the thing you have never told the family. It stays between you and your clinician, with four limits — a risk of serious harm to you, a risk of serious harm to someone else, a child who may be being abused or neglected, or a court order or subpoena for the records. Those limits are explained at the start, and you can ask how they work before you say anything you are unsure about.
Ready to take the first step?
Book a free, no-pressure consultation. We'll talk, listen, and figure out together if we're the right fit. No commitment required.
Book Free ConsultationOr call us: (519) 760-5211
Not ready to book? Send a message instead.
If you would rather ask a question before choosing a time, write a line or two and we will reply by email.