Private Consultations
Mentoring in Grief Counseling and Animal Communication
When I began my grief support practice in 1988, and my animal communication practice in 1991, it helped me tremendously to seek help from mentors to review cases and to receive private and confidential coaching and support as I built my practice and experience. In the more than two decades since then, I have learned a great deal from the joys, rewards, challenges and stresses of working full time in these professions, from the wisdom of other teachers and the wisdom of my animal and human clients. It is very meaningful and fulfilling for me to mentor others to pass on what I have learned and received from others.
What is the Purpose and Value of Private Coaching and Mentoring?
- Workshops and classes are sometimes not enough. Workshops can be extremely valuable and even essential in learning basics, developing more advanced skill and receiving coaching from teachers and confirmation from class exercises. As valuable as these experiences are, sometimes after we return home from a "workshop high," the skills that perhaps flowed easily during the workshop may now seem harder to access, perhaps more questions and concerns emerged for us that were not covered in the class, or the information that seemed so logical in a teleclass is a lot harder to apply in the real world than in theory. These are ideal times for private coaching and mentoring to continue your learning and skill development with help that is tailored specifically to your needs.
- Animal communication and grief support is fairly solitary work. As exhilarating and rewarding as it can be, it is typically done apart from humans beyond our clients. Sometimes having compassionate, expert support and guidance to review one's progress, growth and cases in this work can be very helpful so that continued learning is not done in a vacuum without further feedback and support. One of my favorite teachers in the grief support field, Louis Gamino, Ph.D., a fellow with the Association of Death Education and Counseling and an associate professor at Texas A&M University, talks about the importance of acknowledging that we are all subject to having blind spots. He describes that in the novice stage of our work this may be from inexperience, which can be supported by seeking guidance and counsel for case reviews from teachers or mentors. At the mid-level practitioner and expert stage, this can be from an illusion of infallibility (have seen it all, handled it all, have all the answers) which can be supported by having a trusted senior peer or professional buddy to whom we can turn, even informally, with difficult cases or situations.
- Help and support for difficult or challenging cases. We all—beginners and established professionals alike—can find ourselves in what seems like a questionable or challenging ethical situation that would benefit from discussion with a trusted person with experience in the field to gain some clarity and guidance. In both grief counseling and animal communication, we all occasionally experience a particularly complex client or situation that leaves us feeling overwhelmed. Working with a mentor in such situations can help us find solutions, place the difficult situation in a helpful paradigm that perhaps we did not previously consider, receive support for our work, our role and who we are, and perhaps personally come back to center regarding the challenge.
- Career counseling and support. This can be a valuable part of mentoring when you may be unsure of how you want and are meant to fit animal communication or grief support work into your life and desire help becoming more clear. For instance, do I want to combine animal communication or grief support with other healing arts work or practice? If so, what are the issues of having a dual practice—ethically, logistically? Am I at a point of wanting to change direction in some way, but I am not sure how, or how to get there?
- Guidance and support for the logistics and emotions of creating and managing a private practice. How can I best serve both others' needs with my work and also meet my own needs (time, money, fulfillment of doing what I love, career satisfaction, etc.)? How do I make the transition from informal animal communication sessions or grief support with friends, or as a volunteer to a professional fee based practice with clients? A lot of issues arise during these transitions, such as developing policies for fees, scheduling, and hours that feel right and work for you; dealing with the emotional and boundary issues that may come up for you when people still expect free help (sometimes 24/7) after you open a practice; building confidence when suddenly you are accepting fees for this work. The expectations you may have of yourself and the expectations clients have of you may feel very different from when your work was something you provided as a favor for free or as a volunteer; and managing the process of continuing "other" work to pay the bills while building your practice.
One Mentoring Session:
30 minutes $98
60 minutes$195
90-minutes $265
Discounts for multiple one hour sessions, paid in advance:
3 sessions $495 ($90 savings--would be $585 full price; must be used within 12 months)
6 sessions $995 ($175 savings--would be $1,170 full price; must be used within 18 months)
10 sessions $1,700 ($250 savings--would be $1,950 full price; must be used within 2 years)
Cancellation Policy: Your scheduled appointment time is reserved exclusively for you. As a courtesy to Teresa's full schedule of other work commitments and to other clients waiting for appointments, please give us at least 24 hour notice if you need to cancel or reschedule an appointment. Missed appointments with no notice and appointments canceled within 24 hours will be charged the full amount of the consultation fee. Because our office is closed on weekends, cancellations for Monday sessions must be cancelled by end of business day on Friday.
Please note: For the multiple session packages, scheduled consultations may be rescheduled, but refunds are not issued if a client decides not to use each session in the package.
Grief Counseling (including Anticipatory Grief)
Working with a grief counselor can be a deeply supportive and comforting part of our healing process as we deal with the death, or impending death, of our loved ones.
Sometimes when we lose an animal loved one it can feel as if we are grieving alone--people around us may not understand the magnitude of our love for our animal, the true significance of the relationship, or the depth of our grief. It can often seem like others just don't comprehend what we are going through. Even those who genuinely care about us may not truly understand what our animal means to us or the level of pain the loss brings. This can leave us feeling alienated, misunderstood, stuck or wondering if something is wrong with us at precisely the time that we most need support, understanding and acknowledgement of the significance of what we are experiencing and what we have lost.
Sometimes, even when we are blessed to have people in our life who understand our relationship with our animals, these caring people may not be skilled in listening without imposing unsolicited opinions, advice or platitudes, or may not have the knowledge or skill to help us through overwhelming feelings such as anguish and guilt, in making those heartbreaking decisions about end-of-life, or feeling stuck in our grief and not knowing how to get through it.
It can be extremely valuable and healing to have one-on-one time with a trained, skilled, empathic, pet loss grief counselor who can provide us with:
- A safe place to tell our story, one-on-one, without interruption, with someone who cares, who understands, who listens attentively and will not judge our decisions or how we feel, how long we’ve been grieving or how we are grieving.
- Loving acknowledgement of the depth of our bond with animals and the true scope of our loss, or impending loss, helping us know we are not alone, and certainly not crazy or somehow wrong to love and mourn for our beloved animals as much as we do.
- Support and guidance for the anxiety, stress and challenge of dealing with terminal illnesses, anticipatory grief and making end-of-life decisions.
- A safe place to express any and all of our feelings, to have someone listen to all that is in our heart—however strong, confusing, contradictory, or overwhelming our feelings may seem at times—and have them accepted without judgement, with love, compassion, empathy and understanding.
- Support and professional guidance to work through the very common, challenging and often overwhelming issues of despair and guilt (i.e., feeling like we may never get through the overwhelming pain, questioning whether we did enough for them, made the right choices, made those choices in the right timing)
- Tools and guidance for everyday coping with the despair of loss and for long term healing to find peace, meaning and growth. These tools may include providing insights, expressive art therapy, guided visualizations and meditations, EFT (tapping to release the intensity of pain), journaling and other written exercises—and would be suggested and offered when the counselor believes they would be relevant and helpful, but never imposed.
- Perhaps most of all, having a person who deeply cares, understands and who will not attempt to pacify us with platitudes or impose their own religious, spiritual or new age beliefs about how we are supposed to view animals, our loss, or how we are supposed to heal. Having a compassionately skilled, unconditionally loving witness to our loss, our grief and our process of healing can make all the difference in how we heal our hearts and come closer to finding peace.
For those who desire it, these sessions can also include communication with their animal.
One Counseling Session:
30 minutes $98
60 minutes$195
90-minutes $265
Discounts for multiple one hour sessions, paid in advance:
3 sessions $495 ($90 savings--would be $585 full price; must be used within 12 months)
6 sessions $995 ($175 savings--would be $1,170 full price; must be used within 18 months)
10 sessions $1,700 ($250 savings--would be $1,950 full price; must be used within 2 years)
All multi-sessions series include the following gifts:
- Audio book Legacies of Love, A Gentle Guide to Healing From the Loss of Your Animal Loved One—3 hours of digital mp3 files.
If purchased separately $15.95 - On Demand telelclass Legacies of Love, A Healing Workshop for Those Who Have Lost Their Animal Loved Ones--4 sessions, 8 1/2 hours total; 9 hours of recordings and 99 pages of handouts.
If purchased separately $48
If counseling is not affordable to you at this time:
You may want to consider asking a friend or family member who wants to help you through your grief if they might want to sponsor all or part of the counseling fee as a gift of support.
You may want to consider receiving guidance and support with an on demand workshop on pet loss ($48) which costs less than one counseling session ($98-$265), yet still provides you with comprehensive, in-depth, loving help for your loss and your pain.
Teresa has a masters degree in counseling psychology, has also completed post graduate work in counseling with Carl Rogers at the University of Nottingham; the Clinical Training Program in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the National Center for PTSD, Dept. of Veterans Affairs; and has studied with Elizabeth Kubler Ross, Stephen Levine, and John James at the Grief Recovery Institute. She takes ongoing classes with the Association of Death Education and Counseling, and has presented at their international conference. Teresa believes that the loss of a beloved animal is just as significant to many people as the loss of a human, and would never belittle the loss of an animal, even subtly, as something less important than human death. She has offered pet loss grief counseling and taught workshops in healing grief from pet loss since 1986, and founded and manages The Animal Loss and Grief Support Institute. Animals and the people who love them are the focus of her life's work.
You can read more of her bio here.
Flower Essences & Energy Healing
There are times when we can all benefit by having someone be a compassionate witness and counselor for us through the challenges of life. Sometimes an issue or situation we're grappling with can be so confusing or overwhelming that it's hard to find our next step in coping or healing. A comprehensive flower essence consultation provides both emotional support as well as recommendations for flower essences matched to the specific energy of your issues.
Consultations can also include information and guidance from a person's Spirit Guides, helping them sort through confusion or uncertainty of where they are and how to find peace and healing.
The flower essences, taken after the consultation, "pick up where talking leaves off," providing continuing energetic support to cope with, resolve and come to peace about issues far beyond the scope of verbal consultations. And, they do so without the harmful side effects of psychotropic drugs. I love helping people use flower essences and their gentle yet so powerful ability to help heal our core issues and to cope with life’s challenges.
As humans and animals, at times we need to be touched at our very core, at a level beyond what words, intellectual insight and even empathy can accomplish. Our souls sometimes need to receive pure light, pure unconditional love, to remember the strength and wisdom of our own souls, in order to have the courage to go forward with our growth, the right path, decision, or action. The healing energy of flower essences can facilitate inner shifts or stability needed for animals and humans to move on their journeys with greater physical, emotional or spiritual strength and balance.
Read more about flower essences
Read more about the Animal Relief Formula Teresa created for animals, and the Grief Relief Formula for both people and animals.
Teresa has completed the practitioner training with Patricia Kaminski and Richard Katz at FES and has taken classes with Machellle Small Wright at Perelanda and Cynthia Kemp of Desert Alchemy. Read more about Teresa.
