What is a grief coach? What is a grief doula? How can they help me?
Coaches and doulas are hot topics in the world of self-help…especially coaches! It’s no surprise that grief professionals are choosing to embrace this language too.
While it sounds confusing to have all of these titles, the good news is that grief doulas and grief coaches are essentially the same role. Each might practice slightly differently or have their own reasons for why they resonate more with the word, “coach,” vs. “doula,” and vice versa.
Is a grief coach or grief doula the same as therapy?
Grief coaches and grief doulas technically fall under the umbrella of “life coaching.” (No, I don’t resonate with that term, but that’s what they’re technically considered.)
Meanwhile, grief counseling from a licensed mental health therapist is called “clinical therapy.” Or “mental health counseling.” Or “grief counseling.”
While there can be significant overlap, there are a few crucial ways that grief coaching differs from grief counseling.
Grief coaches and doulas do not diagnose, prescribe, or treat.
Grief doulas or coaches are non-clinical roles. This means that they do not have the power or qualifications to diagnose clients with any mental health condition (depression, anxiety, PTSD). They cannot prescribe medication. They also cannot treat mental health conditions.
If any grief coach or doula tries to do any of the above…they are wildly overstepping their boundaries and training, and this is considered an ethical breach according to the doula code of conduct.
Does not use clinical modalities (think: cognitive behavior therapy, EMDR, etc.)
I once heard a story of a grief client asking one of my colleagues, “what modalities will you use with me?” Bewildered, my colleague answered, “none.”
Our grief work doesn’t involve the use of clinical modalities such as CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), EMDR, or any other documented methodology. What we do is perhaps less quantifiable but no less effective.
Grief doulas and coaches validate through listening, by holding space and offering sacred presence.
Rather than diagnosing or prescribing, we facilitate healing by holding compassionate space and presence. (Which is, of course, an effective tool shared by therapists!)
We are receptacles for stories: stories of grief and loss (how the death happened), stories of joy and memory (happy times with the beloved), stories of longing and how to muddle through the mess (“I put my keys in the freezer and I feel like I’m losing my mind.”).
How do grief doulas and coaches help?
A soft place to feel ALL the feelings
Grief doesn’t like to be rushed or hurried through. It likes to be witnessed and held with love. The power of presence and compassionate space is one of the strongest tools in a grief doula or grief coach’s arsenal.
This looks like remaining silent, allowing a griever to ramble on and on – and not rushing to fix, or cut off their tirade with soothing words. We make room for the pain in all its horrifying enormity.
Normalize with grief education
Presence is powerful, AND a grief doula or coach is trained specifically in grief education – an area in which some clinical therapists are lacking.
When a grief doula normalizes and validates the bewildering grief experience, people feel seen. People feel like they aren’t, in fact, broken. Grief education says, no, you aren’t crazy. No, you aren’t grieving wrong. You’re simply grieving. It hurts. It sucks. It’s as simple as that. And yes, this *waves hands vaguely at the grief process and allllll the somatic symptoms* is completely natural.
Customized exercises, prompts, reflections to guide you on your grief
In my grief support work, I provide clients with grief-y resources to support them in between our sessions. For instance, every session is documented in-depth with hand-typed notes (not regurgitated from ChatGPT).
These 1-4 pages of notes contain a summary of our session, along with a repository of questions, reflections, and/or prompts to consider that we may not have addressed during our time together. Sometimes I’ll include recommendations from my curated library of grief support books, materials, or podcasts…or I’ll provide a quick snippet, knowing that some folks devour grief books while some lose the ability to focus long enough to read a single chapter.
Bonus: why a grief doula is better than ChatGPT
Endless (and harmful) validation machines
At first glance, someone might say, “you do an awful lot of validating and affirming. I can get that from ChatGPT…for free.”
While this is true, it’s barely skimming the surface of what a grief doula can offer. Yes, both grief doulas and AI validate the grief experience. But the research has shown that AI becomes an endless “validation machine,” even at the harm of people. By contrast, a grief doula is specially trained to know when to validate a normal grief experience, or when to gently push back or challenge beliefs.
Chat is a robot; a grief doula is a human presence
AI does not have the same lived experience as a human being. No matter how much AI plagiarizes the work of writers and tries to make itself human, in reality, it’s only the world’s largest plagiarization platform. Tears will never spring to its eyes or touch a hand to its heart as it breaks from listening to a story of sorrow.
ChatGPT will never have the same life experience to draw from to help shape its work or perspective on grief, life, and loss. Just the other day, I shared a metaphor for grief that was inspired from the work I do with horses…chat can’t connect those abstract, unrelated dots because it was never programmed to do so. It can only recite the 5 stages of grief at you.
So what are you, Niki? Grief doula? Grief Coach?
Technically, I am a “Certified Grief Educator,” having completed a rigorous training with David Kessler. I’ve also trained with Megan Devine, another of the world’s prominent experts in grief.
I don’t really lean on the title of “grief educator,” though a lot of my work IS grief education with my clients. But I don’t ONLY educate. I also don’t resonate fully with “grief doula” (I’m a DEATH doula), or “grief coach” (coaching has always given me vibes of “We fix XYZ…grief is not something to fix”).
So for now, my title is “a death doula who specializes in 1:1 grief work.”
I have also played with the term, “grief tender,” because it most accurately describes how I work: together, we tend to your grief with love. We tend it through stories. We tend it through tears. We tend it through laughter. In giving the tender experience of grief a space to breathe, we tend to our shattered hearts.
No matter what name we choose (grief coach, grief doula, grief educator, grief tender), we all hold space for grief – in its enormous complexity.
Are you ready to be supported in your grief?
Reading words on a blog can be incredibly validating. And it’s still not the same as getting your personal grief story heard and seen, as well as getting all your grief-y questions answered.
If you’re ready for grief support, reach out and book a session below.
