This powerful and dynamic experience is the most sensible, accessible, and authentic plan available for recovery from loss. The program is presented in either an 8-week group format or a 7-week one-on-one format. It is neither a support group nor a drop-in program. It is an experiential, action-based program with homework assignments. The Grief Recovery Handbook, 20th Anniversary Expanded Edition, by Grief Recovery Institute founders John W. James and Russell Friedman (both featured in the video on my Welcome page) is used as the text for this program. The Grief Recovery Institute has refined the programs over the past 30 years of helping grievers.​​

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The group provides a safe environment for participants to take the actions of The Grief Recovery Method. You will look at your old beliefs about dealing with loss, what losses have affected your life, and take new actions that will lead you to completion of the pain attached to those losses. As a result, our participants find that they are able to discover and complete what was left emotionally unfinished due to a death, a divorce, or other major loss.

Recovery from loss is accomplished by discovering and completing all of the undelivered communications that accrue in relationships. We are all advised to "let go" or "move on with your life," but nobody tells you what you need to do to accomplish that.

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Completion of the pain caused by loss is what allows us to let go and move on. It is almost impossible to move on, however, without first taking a series of actions that lead to completion. The Grief Recovery Method Support Group, developed and refined over the past 30 years, not only makes that possible, but provides partnerships and guidance to ensure that it happens.

The Problem

Evidence-based

What is The Grief Recovery Method® Support Group?

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When is it Time to Start Grief Recovery?

The Grief Recovery Method is an evidence-based program, so there is actual published research documenting the program's effectiveness in helping grievers. Research has been published by Dr. Rachael Nolan in the American Journal of Health Education, documenting the program's effectiveness, regardless of the type of loss. So if you wonder if the program would help you, there is actual peer-reviewed research that shows the program can truly help you!

Is it ever too soon to recover? No! Effective Grief Recovery can begin immediately. We tend to create larger-than-life memory pictures in which we either enshrine or bedevil the person who died. This phenomenon increases with time, making it more difficult to discover the truth within our relationships. It is never too soon to address your grief.

Please don’t just wait. Time alone will not heal a broken heart.

The Solution

Many grief groups provide an environment for you to verbalize the thoughts and feelings you experience following a loss. While there is a benefit to that kind of expression, it is not enough. Talking about how you feel does not complete the unfinished emotional business that is attached to a loss. The Grief Recovery Method Support Group is designed to guide you through a series of actions to not only verbalize your feelings, but to help you complete the pain associated with those feelings. For the safety and success of all participants, commitment and attendance are essential.

What is the difference between The Grief Recovery Method®  Support Group and other support groups?

Are you suffering from a broken heart? Was it caused by a death, divorce, or the breakup of a romantic relationship? Or was it caused by any of the 40 other losses that a person can experience during a lifetime? Regardless of the cause, you know how you feel and it probably isn’t good.


In The Grief Recovery Method Support Group, I am not going to tell you, “I know how you feel,” because I don’t. Neither does anyone else. Your feelings are normal and natural. The problem is that we have been socialized to believe that these feelings are abnormal and unnatural.

While grief is normal and natural, most of the information passed on within our society about dealing with loss is not normal, natural, or helpful. Grief is the emotional response to loss, but most of the information we have learned about dealing with loss is intellectual. The majority of incorrect ideas about dealing with loss can be summed up in six myths that are so common that nearly everyone recognizes them. Most people have never questioned if they are valid.

The SIx Myths about grief:

  • Time heals all wounds

  • Replace the loss

  • Grieve alone

  • Be strong

  • Don’t feel bad

  • Keep busy

Just looking at the myth that "time heals" creates the idea that a person just has to wait and they will feel better. People wait ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years, and still don’t feel better. And they would tell you that not only had time not healed them, but that it had compounded the pain.