Grief coaching and support in Manchester

If you've found this page, you've probably been searching for grief counselling, bereavement support, or something, anything, that might help. That search is harder than it should be. The options have different names that seem to mean much the same thing, some have waiting lists, and none of it is easy to think clearly about while you're grieving.

This page sets out one of those options plainly: what grief coaching actually is, where it differs from counselling and therapy, and how to work out which one fits the situation you're in. There's a fuller side-by-side comparison of coaching, counselling and therapy if you want the detail.

Steve is a certified STILL Method grief coach based in Manchester. He runs a six-week online grief coaching course for adults across Greater Manchester and the rest of the UK, in a small group, or the same six weeks one-to-one.

Looking for grief counselling in Manchester?

A lot of people arrive here searching for grief counselling in Manchester and aren't sure whether that's actually what they need. Counselling, therapy and coaching get used almost interchangeably, which doesn't help anyone, so here's how they differ.

Counselling and psychotherapy are clinical work, delivered by practitioners registered with professional bodies and suited to mental health difficulty: trauma, depression, anxiety, and grief that has become stuck or complicated. The work often looks at your history as well as your future, and at how you've come to cope the way you do.

Coaching is structured, practical and mostly forward-facing: understanding what's happening to you, and building tools you can actually use. It works well for people who are functioning (going to work, looking after others) but finding that it's costing them everything they have.

How to tell which one you need

There's no clean line, but there are some reasonably clear signals.

Clinical support (a GP, a counsellor or a therapist) is the better place to start if:

• you're having thoughts of not wanting to be here, or of harming yourself
• you're leaning on alcohol or drugs to get through the days in a way that feels out of control
• you're not functioning: not eating, not sleeping for an extended period, unable to work or care for the people who depend on you
• you were already living with depression, anxiety or PTSD before the loss, or the loss has brought an older one back up
• the grief has felt completely unchanged for a long time, as though it's frozen

Coaching may be a good fit if:

• you're getting through the days, but it's taking everything you've got
• you don't feel ill, and don't want to be treated as though you are
• you'd like structure and something practical, rather than open-ended conversation
• being around other people who understand sounds like a relief rather than a risk
• you're not currently working with a therapist or counsellor

What it isn't is both at once. Where both are relevant it's one and then the other, and clinical care comes first. If you're currently working with a therapist or counsellor, finish that before joining the course. There's more on how the three differ, what each costs, and who each one suits.

If you're already waiting for counselling

If you've been referred and you're in the queue, stay there. Where clinical support is what you need, it's worth waiting for, however long the wait turns out to be.

Coaching is a different kind of support with its own job: structure, a way of understanding what grief is doing to you, and practical tools you can keep. It's worth choosing because it's what you're looking for.

Working with a grief coach in Manchester

Life After Loss is a six-week live course for adults working through loss, run online in a small group, built on the STILL Method, a trauma-informed framework for understanding what happens in your body and mind after a bereavement, and building practical ways through it. One session a week for six weeks. £129 including VAT, paid in full at booking.

Steve is based in Manchester and the course runs online, so you can join from anywhere in Greater Manchester or anywhere else in the UK. If a group isn't right for you, the same six weeks run one-to-one with Steve instead, for £290 including VAT.