Grief & Bereavement
Grief Counselling Doesn't Ask You to Let Go of Them.
Support for bereavement, anticipatory grief, ambiguous loss and grief that has stopped easing, in Gurugram and online worldwide.
Grief counselling helps you carry a loss that hasn't become carryable on its own. It is not a timetable, and it does not ask you to move on or let go. Dr. Prerna Kohli works with bereavement, anticipatory grief, ambiguous loss and prolonged grief, in Gurugram and online worldwide, in English and Hindi.
"People arrive apologising for still being sad. Somebody has usually told them it has been long enough. There is no long enough. There is only whether the grief has become something you can live alongside, or something that has closed the rest of your life down."
Most people don't come to me in the first weeks. They come at eight months, or two years, when the casseroles have stopped and everyone has returned to their own lives and they are still, quietly, not all right.
By then they have usually started to think something is wrong with them. It isn't. It is that grief in this country is given about a fortnight of public permission, and then it becomes something you are expected to manage privately.
What grief counselling actually is
A place to say the true things without managing anybody else's reaction. That is most of it, and it sounds small until you have spent a year protecting your children, your parents and your colleagues from how you actually feel.
What it is not, and this stops more people booking than anything else:
- It is not being told to move on. Nobody will ask you to let go of them, stop talking about them, or put the photographs away.
- It is not a schedule. There are no stages you are behind on. The stage model was never meant to be a timetable and has never held up as one.
- It is not forgetting. The aim is a relationship with the person that you can carry, not an absence you have learned to ignore.
- It is not just for the recently bereaved. A great deal of this work happens years later, often about a death nobody in the family discusses.
The kinds of grief people bring
Grief is not one thing, and the shape of it changes what helps.
Bereavement
The death of a spouse, parent, child, sibling or friend. The most recognised form, and still the most under-supported once the first month has passed.
Anticipatory grief
Grieving someone who is still alive. Common in families caring for a parent with dementia or a long illness, and confusing because it carries guilt alongside the sadness. More on grieving someone still here.
Ambiguous loss
Loss without a body, a funeral or a clear ending. A parent whose mind has gone while they are still in the room. A marriage that ended without anyone saying so. Migration, sometimes. The country and the people you left are not dead, and you have still lost them.
Disenfranchised grief
Grief that others don't count as grief. A miscarriage. A colleague. A pet. An ex-partner. A relationship your family never acknowledged. The loss is real and there is nowhere to put it, which makes it heavier rather than lighter.
Prolonged grief
When grief hasn't begun to loosen after a year or more, and life has narrowed around it. Now a recognised diagnosis, and treatable with the right approach. When grief does not begin to ease.
What the research shows
Sources: World Health Organization ICD-11 and published prevalence reviews of prolonged grief disorder; National Mental Health Survey of India, NIMHANS; Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
Grief in an Indian family
The rituals are, in my clinical view, genuinely protective. Thirteen days of people in the house, food arriving, prayers, the body of the community physically present. Very few cultures do the first fortnight as well.
What we do badly is the fourteenth day onward. The house empties. Everybody returns to work. And the bereaved person discovers that the same family that filled their living room now finds continued sadness slightly embarrassing.
Widows carry a particular version of this. There are expectations about where a widow should live, who she should live with, how she should present herself, and how long she is permitted to be visibly undone. Those expectations arrive dressed as care, and they are often experienced as pressure.
And for the roughly 32 million Indians living abroad, the whole structure is unavailable. Either the death happened in India and you couldn't get there in time, or it happened where you live and every person who would have sat with you is eight thousand kilometres away. Grieving far from home is its own subject.
The year she couldn't tell if she'd chosen right
A woman in her forties, widowed suddenly while living in a country far from India, with school-age children. Her parents and her husband's family were all in India and all, gently and constantly, wanted her to come back.
She stayed. Her children had their schools, their friends, the only life they knew, and she was not willing to take that from them in the same year they lost their father.
What she brought to me, about a year on, wasn't the bereavement. It was that she could not tell whether staying had been strength or a mistake, and she had been re-arguing it with herself every night since. Two griefs running at once: her husband, and the support she had turned down.
The work was not about the decision. Decisions like that have no correct answer and cannot be solved by examining them harder. It was about accepting the loss, both of them, so that she could stop treating her own life as a question she was failing to answer.
A composite drawn from several presentations, not a real client. No identifying details belong to any individual.
How the work is done
Dr. Kohli sees every client herself. There is no associate pool and no case is delegated, which matters more in grief work than almost anywhere, because you should not have to tell this story twice.
- First, the account. What happened, in your words, at whatever length it takes. Many people have never told it start to finish without someone interrupting to comfort them.
- Then, what is stuck. Guilt about the last conversation. Anger nobody permits. A funeral you missed. Relief you cannot admit to.
- Then, the practical. Anniversaries, the festival season, their belongings, the questions children ask.
- Throughout, no timetable. Some people come for a handful of sessions. Others return around the anniversary for years. Both are reasonable.
Sessions run 30, 60 or 75 minutes, the same fee in clinic or online, with full details on the consultation page.
Grief can bring thoughts of not wanting to be here, or of wanting to be with the person who died. That is more common than people expect and it is worth telling someone about. If you cannot keep yourself safe, please contact your local emergency services or attend your nearest hospital now.
You don't have to be over it to come
Sessions with Dr. Kohli directly, in Gurugram or online worldwide, in English or Hindi. There is no schedule you are behind on.
Book a session WhatsApp +91 9811862338Grief and loss — the full library
Grouped by what you are facing.
- What happens in grief counselling. What the first sessions are actually like.
- Coping with grief. Where to start.
- Coping with loss. A compassionate guide.
- Prolonged grief disorder. When grief does not begin to ease.
- Anticipatory grief. Grieving a parent who is still alive.
- Grieving far from home. Loss across continents.
- After the death of a spouse
- Coping with the death of a child
- When a colleague dies
- Helping your child after a parent's death
- Helping children after a grandparent's death
- Empathy and sympathy. How to support someone grieving.
Common questions
What is grief counselling?
It is structured support for a loss that has not become bearable on its own. The work involves telling the account fully, addressing what has become stuck (guilt, anger, a funeral you missed) and finding a way to carry the person rather than to stop feeling their absence. It is not advice, and it is not a schedule.
Will I be told to move on?
No. That instruction does more harm than almost anything else said to bereaved people, and it is not what this work does. The aim is a relationship with the person you have lost that you can live alongside. Nobody will ask you to let go of them or put their photographs away.
How long is grief supposed to last?
There is no correct duration, and the stage model was never intended as a timetable. Direction matters more than speed. Grief that gradually makes room for the rest of your life is following its course. Grief that has narrowed your life around it for a year or more is worth attention.
Is it too late if the death was years ago?
Not at all, and a good deal of this work concerns losses that are decades old. Grief that was never given space, because you were holding a family together or because it was never spoken about, often waits. It is common for it to surface at a later bereavement, an anniversary, or when your own children reach the age you were.
What is prolonged grief disorder?
Persistent, intense grief lasting beyond a year that continues to disrupt daily functioning, usually with intense yearning, preoccupation with the person, and difficulty accepting the death. Around 10% of bereaved adults develop it, more after sudden losses. It is recognised diagnostically and responds to specific treatment.
How is grief different from depression?
Grief tends to come in waves, with the pain attached to the person and moments of ordinary feeling in between. Depression is flatter and more constant, and typically carries a global sense of worthlessness rather than loss. They can also occur together. The distinction matters because treatment differs, and it is worth a proper assessment rather than a guess.
Can I grieve someone who is still alive?
Yes. Anticipatory grief is common in families caring for a parent with dementia or a long illness, and it is a genuine form of grief rather than borrowed trouble. It carries a particular guilt, because it can feel like giving up on someone still here. Naming it usually helps more than resisting it.
What if others don't think my loss counts?
Disenfranchised grief, for a pet or a miscarriage or a colleague or an ex-partner or a relationship your family never acknowledged, is often harder precisely because there is nowhere to put it. The absence of permission does not make the loss smaller. It removes the support that would ordinarily come with it.
I'm abroad and couldn't get to the funeral. Does that make it worse?
It frequently does, and it is one of the most common things NRI clients bring. Rituals do real psychological work, and missing them can leave the death feeling unfinished. Grieving without the community that would have surrounded you at home is its own difficulty, and it is workable.
How do I help my children while I'm grieving too?
Children generally cope better with a parent who is visibly sad and honest than with one performing being fine. They notice the performance and conclude that the subject is forbidden. Answering their questions plainly and at their level, while getting your own support elsewhere, tends to serve everyone better.
Do you offer grief counselling online?
Yes, and it works well for this. Sessions are held by secure video, scheduled around your time zone, in English or Hindi. A great many clients are Indians living abroad who have no culturally fluent clinician nearby, which is exactly the situation online sessions were suited to.
What if I feel relief that they died?
This is far more common than anyone admits, particularly after a long illness or a difficult relationship, and it is not a moral failing. Relief and grief regularly occupy the same person at the same time. Being unable to say it out loud is usually what makes it unbearable, not the feeling itself.
How many sessions will I need?
It varies genuinely. Some people come for a defined piece of work over a few sessions. Others return around anniversaries for years, which is a reasonable way to use this. The pace is agreed with you and reviewed openly rather than sold as a fixed course.
Related reading: depression, stress and burnout, NRI mental health, and parental counselling.
This page is general psychoeducation and not a substitute for individual assessment or treatment. If you are in immediate danger or unable to keep yourself safe, contact your local emergency services or attend your nearest hospital without delay.