COUNSELING SERVICES

Grief Counseling

Grief counseling is available for individuals, couples, families, businesses and communities.

Sessions can be scheduled to take place at Lyn’s San Francisco or Marin county office, her office in San Miguel de Allende Mexico, at the client’s home, or in a hospice or hospital (there is an additional travel fee for on-site visits).

Sessions are scheduled for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or more, depending on the nature of the loss and personal need. Single sessions will prove quite beneficial, and often a continuing course of treatment is recommended. It is common for an individual to schedule weekly sessions for a period of two to three months.

The course of treatment begins with a consultation and evaluation session. The counselor, the client and any appropriate medical staff determine the treatment regime. The first treatments typically aim to provide immediate emotional relief and physical comfort. Progress is evaluated regularly. As healing occurs, fewer visits are required.

Phone and video conferencing consultations are also available. Please contact Lyn to schedule an appointment today. Note:  Lyn offers a FREE NO-OBLIGATION grief chat.  Lyn works in both English and Spanish

On-Site Crisis Services

Lyn has the skill and the presence to assist both individuals, communities and corporations during times of profound stress due to issues of traumatic event.

Lyn provides on-site crisis management in both English and Spanish.  Group work focuses on:

• critical thinking

• expert communication

• compassionate and compassionate care

A case study…

Sunset Reservoir Retrofit Project Crisis
San Francisco, CA

In October 2008 I received a call from Kathryn Dyson, an agent from the Zurich insurance company. Zurich insured the Shimmick Construction Company, and a worker had lost his life on the Sunset Reservoir Retrofit Project in San Francisco. Dyson was looking for a bilingual grief counselor who could offer grief support to traumatized grief-stricken employees.

For the next six months, I was on call to work with Shimmick’s workforce to provide a confidential container where the men and women felt safe to fall apart. Knowing they weren’t being judged or shamed and knowing no one was trying to fix them, the employees released their need for control and were able to comfortably express their complex emotions–while respecting cultural differences.

Ultimately, group members came away with grief coping tools that they could use for the rest of their lives.

In addition to my in-person work, I provided the company’s staff and employees with written reference materials and supported the establishment of a fund for the deceased worker’s unborn child.

Upon request, I continue to make myself available to advise management on the issues relevant to the death of their employee, and issues of loss and grief in the work place.

Please contact Lyn for more specific information regarding scheduling and fees.

Educational Trainings

Lyn Prashant, PhD, FT, IGT, CMT, is a certified grief counselor who teaches and lectures about grief, the Degriefing Process and other grief-related topics. She is available to give educational presentations to your health care staff and invited guests. She is a respected consultant in the thanatology field.  She provided continuing education units for Psychologists, MFCC’s, LCSW’s, and Nurses in the US. She is known to be an engaging and interesting speaker to English and Spanish speaking audiences.  She is available to travel for speaking engagements.

St. Luke’s Hospice in Cape Town, South Africa

Personal Private Confidential Grief Relief Retreats

Integrative Grief Therapy: Degriefing for the Bereaved

The private retreat is specifically tailored to accommodate each individual’s needs. Together through skillful communication we clarify the prominent issues to be addressed, length of retreat desired and modalities to incorporate. The cost is then determined.

This experiential retreat is for grieving individuals, couples and families interested in exploring their relationship to loss in their life.

In a personal retreat, due to the extended focus and hours, there is a continuation of exploration that deepens with each session.  This affords the opportunity to explore issues and circumstances that have long since been held, carried by the body and identified by the mind as troublesome.

While each individual grieves in an entirely personal and unique way, there are aspects of bereavement that are universal.  Supportive Degriefing integrative modalities are chosen by the client with supportive guidance of the therapist.

Since fresh loss and grief re-stimulates past events and the emotional components that surround the event; unresolved embodied grief lies in wait ready to create havoc.  The grief attached to these events produce emotional pain and the physical discomfort that have been draining the individual’s life force and sense of well being, often resulting in exhaustion and depression.

The client is supported to identify and express the underlying themes of loss and the subsequent stories and physical sensations that surround that event.

By recognizing the re-stimulated issues, we can then assess available modalities for transformation. We use the grief to fuel the selected integrative activities.

The Degriefing approach offers the client specific choices as to how to finally embrace these long-held, compounded circumstances in their life that have regularly caused upheaval.

According to the premise that “we don’t get over our losses; we change relationship to them,” we consciously and gently realign ourselves for the highest good.

No previous therapeutic experience is necessary.

A completed intake form and a phone interview is required for all Grief Relief Retreats.