Grief & Loss Counselling · Online in Six Provinces
Grief Counselling and Therapy Online in Canada
Online only · Free 15-minute consultation · $150 per 60-minute session · Evenings and weekends to 9 pm Pacific
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 online, in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Prefer not to create an account? Text two times that suit you to (519) 760-5211 and we will book it for you, or send them through the short form. We reply with two consultation times, usually within 24 hours. If you would rather work with a particular clinician, say so and it is arranged.
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.
- 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline — call or text 9-8-8 (Canada, 24/7)
- 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 counselling online in Canada, at a glance. TEO Counselling provides grief and bereavement counselling online across British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador. Grief work is led by Rola Shbib, BSW (Hons), RSW (Ontario), OCSWSSW #866715, who holds an honours degree in thanatology; she and Mohamad Shabib, MACP, a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC #11249205), serve all six provinces, and Alison Shaji, a Registered Clinical Counsellor with the BCACC (#22608), works in British Columbia. Appointments run 12:00 pm to 9:00 pm Pacific, seven days a week — 3:00 pm to midnight in Ontario. Individual sessions are $150 and couples sessions $175, each 60 minutes. No provincial health plan covers counselling in private practice; every session comes with an insurance-ready receipt, and direct billing is available with Mohamad and Alison for Pacific Blue Cross and TELUS eClaims plans. The first step is a free 15-minute consultation on a video call or a scheduled phone call, with no referral needed.
Grief therapy here is online, for whatever you have lost, from home with no office to visit. Online grief counselling does not ask you to rank your loss or to be over it by a certain date, and the same is true of online bereavement counselling after a death. That includes grief counselling for pet loss: losing an animal you loved counts here the same as any other loss, and a grief counsellor will treat it that way.
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 — grief that stays intense and keeps getting in the way of daily life
If any of these resonate, you are not alone — and you do not have to carry it by yourself.
What grief therapy works on:
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 in Arabic with Mohamad.
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.
The Body's Part in Grief
Grief shows up physically — heaviness, exhaustion, tension. Sessions make room for that alongside the rest of the work.
CBT
Gently challenges the guilt-based or self-critical thoughts that can 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, the loss of a pet, 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.
- 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline — call or text 9-8-8 (Canada, 24/7)
- 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. Our article on the stages of grief and what the model misses traces where the sequence came from.
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. Grief that begins while the person is still alive is often called anticipatory grief.
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.
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 Canadian Certified Counsellor with the CCPA who works with clients in all six provinces the practice serves. He holds Advanced EMDR training through an EMDRIA-approved programme, 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
Therapy is online, and the free consultation is on a video call or a scheduled phone call; 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 15-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.
Questions and answers
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.
What is prolonged grief disorder, and when should I get help?
Prolonged grief disorder is a diagnosis in ICD-11 (code 6B42) and DSM-5-TR for grief after someone close dies, centred on longing for or preoccupation with them, clearly beyond cultural or religious norms. ICD-11 adds intense emotional pain, grief lasting atypically long (more than six months at a minimum), and significant impairment. DSM-5-TR requires a death at least twelve months ago (six for children and adolescents), three or more of eight other symptoms nearly every day for at least the last month, and significant distress or impairment. These are diagnostic minimums, not deadlines: grief has no correct timetable. TEO clinicians do not diagnose; only authorized professionals can. If grief is crowding out work, sleep or people, reach out without waiting; Rola Shbib leads grief work here. For thoughts of suicide, call or text 9-8-8 (Canada, 24/7); in immediate danger, call 911.
Will insurance cover grief sessions?
When you see Mohamad or Alison, TEO can direct-bill a number of plans, including Pacific Blue Cross, CVAP and plans on the TELUS eClaims network. Otherwise, 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. In Ontario, OHIP does not cover sessions with private-practice therapists who are not physicians; the guide to what therapy costs in Ontario lists free and lower-cost options. Check your plan against the clinician you would see: for Mohamad, ask about Canadian Certified Counsellor; 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.
Do you offer grief counselling after the loss of a pet?
Yes. Grief after a pet's death is treated as grief: $150 per 60-minute online session, anywhere in the six provinces TEO serves, with a free 15-minute consultation first.
A free tool for this
The Grief Toolkit is a free printable written for grief that arrives as anger, feels too big to let in, or does not fit the mourning rules you were handed — it works from waves rather than stages.
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.
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