Scheduled, client-centred counselling for people carrying the death of someone important through suicide. Registered Psychologists, Registered Provisional Psychologists, Registered Social Workers, Canadian Certified Counsellors, Mental Health Therapists, and Student Therapists. Psychologists are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP). In person in Edmonton and St. Albert, or virtually across Alberta. 50-minute sessions, daytime and evening availability.

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You Might Be Wondering Whether Suicide Loss Counselling Is Right for You

You may be quietly asking yourself whether you have any right to be this affected. Maybe you were not the closest person to them. Maybe you were, and it has been long enough that you think you should be further along by now. Maybe you are worried that saying any of it out loud will make it more real, or that a therapist will hear the details and think something about you that you cannot take back.

Some people notice they keep going over the last conversation, looking for the sentence they missed. Some find they can manage work and errands and school pickup, then lose an hour in the car in a parking lot. Some pull away from people who have done nothing wrong, because ordinary conversation has started to feel like a performance. Some feel anger at the person who died and then feel ashamed of the anger.

Responses like these are common after a death by suicide. They do not mean you are grieving incorrectly, and they do not mean something is permanently wrong with you. Grief after suicide can take many forms, and there is no required sequence and no deadline.

This page explains what counselling after a suicide loss involves here, what it does not involve, what it costs, and what happens if it turns out not to be the right fit. You may wish to read on and see whether it feels relevant to you.

Who We Help

This service may be a good fit if you are:

• An adult, youth, or older adult who has lost a family member, partner, friend, colleague, or classmate to suicide
• A parent or caregiver trying to work out how to talk with a child about the death
• Someone whose loss happened recently, or many years ago
• Someone who was not close to the person who died but has been more affected than expected
• A first responder, health worker, or educator affected by a death encountered through work
• Someone reading this for another person and trying to understand what support might look like
• Unsure whether you want ongoing counselling, and willing to use a first session to find out

This service may not be the right fit if:

• You are in crisis right now. Scheduled counselling is not an emergency response. Please use the crisis resources below.
• You need a psychological assessment or a report. Psychological assessments are a separate service at this clinic and are not included in counselling. The admin team can explain that pathway if you ask.
• You need a legal, forensic, or investigative service. Counselling does not investigate a death, provide expert opinion for court, or produce findings about what happened.
• You are looking for medication. Psychologists in Alberta do not prescribe. Your physician or nurse practitioner handles that.

If You Need Help Right Now

Wholesome Psychology provides scheduled counselling and is not an emergency or crisis service. If there is an immediate concern about safety, please use one of these instead of waiting for an appointment.

• 911 if someone is in immediate danger
• 9-8-8 Suicide Crisis Helpline, call or text 988, available across Canada at any hour
• Alberta Mental Health Help Line, 1-877-303-2642, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

For non-urgent local bereavement support, CMHA Edmonton's Suicide Bereavement Support Services may be a useful starting point (Canadian Mental Health Association [CMHA] Edmonton, n.d.).

Wholesome Psychology is not an emergency or crisis service.

What This Service Is

Suicide loss counselling is a private, scheduled conversation with a regulated clinician about the death of someone important to you and about how your life has changed since. Sessions are 50 minutes. You decide what to bring and how much detail to go into.

People bring different things. Some want to talk about the person who died rather than the death. Some want to work through unanswered questions, or the parts they blame themselves for. Some need help with practical pressures that arrived alongside the grief, or with changes at work, at school, or inside the family. Some want help deciding what to tell a child.

What this service is not:

• It is not a diagnostic service. Counselling here does not assign you a diagnosis, and seeking support after a suicide loss does not mean you have a mental health condition.
• It is not a psychological assessment. Assessments are a separate service with a separate process and fee structure.
• It is not a legal or investigative process, and it does not produce reports about the death.
• It is not crisis intervention or a substitute for urgent medical care.

The pace belongs to you, not to the therapist. Confidentiality applies, with limits set out in Alberta law, and those limits are explained at the start of care rather than left for you to discover. The confidentiality section below covers this in detail.

Signs a Suicide Loss May Be Affecting You

People respond to a suicide death in very different ways, and none of the following is required or expected. Some people recognise several of these. Some recognise none and still find counselling useful.

• Replaying conversations or events, searching for what you should have noticed
• Guilt, or a sense that you are responsible in some way you cannot fully explain
• Anger at the person who died, at other people, or at yourself, sometimes followed by shame about the anger
• Difficulty saying how the person died, or dread about being asked
• Withdrawing from friends and family, or feeling separate from people even while with them
• Trouble sleeping, appetite changes, headaches, or a heaviness in the body that does not lift
• Difficulty concentrating, losing track of time, or finding routine tasks unusually hard
• Avoiding places, dates, objects, or people that bring the death back
• Periods of feeling almost normal, followed by waves that arrive without warning

Experiences like these are common reactions to a difficult loss rather than signs of a defect or a personal failure. They are also not a diagnosis, and this list is not a checklist you can pass or fail. Structured support can give these responses somewhere to go, and a first session can be used simply to talk through whether that would be useful for you.

How Treatment Works Here

• Find your therapist. Use the Match with a Therapist tool or read individual profiles on the Our Therapists page. If you would rather talk it through with a person, the admin team can be reached at 780-904-4880 and can explain the options.
• Book your first session. The first session covers consent, confidentiality and its limits, what brought you in, and what you would like support with. You are not required to describe the death in detail in that session, or in any session.
• Build your plan together. You and your therapist agree on what the work will focus on. The plan is co-created, and you can say when something is not working.
• Ongoing sessions. Follow-up sessions are typically weekly or bi-weekly and are 50 minutes. Frequency can be adjusted around your circumstances.
• Progress check-ins. Your therapist reviews progress with you at intervals, and the plan changes as your needs change.

There is no fixed number of sessions. Some people come for a short period and stop. Some come, pause, and return around an anniversary or a court date or a birthday. Your voice matters at every stage, including the decision to stop.

Evidence and Approaches

The evidence base for suicide bereavement support is narrower than for many other areas of therapy, and the material available to this page does not contain effectiveness findings. The approaches below are described honestly on that basis, including what is not known.

Individual Suicide Loss Counselling

What it helps with: A private, scheduled setting to talk about the person who died, the circumstances, and the changes that followed.

Evidence summary: A systematic review has examined controlled studies of interventions for people bereaved through suicide, covering grief, psychosocial, and suicide-related outcomes (Andriessen et al., 2019). The material available for this page identifies that review but does not report its results or certainty ratings, so no claim is made here about how effective any particular approach is.

Limitations: Because the findings are not available in the evidence pack, effectiveness cannot be stated, compared, or implied. Individual responses vary, and counselling does not guarantee any outcome.

Grief-Focused Counselling Without Diagnostic Framing

What it helps with: Making room for grief that does not follow a tidy shape, without treating the grief itself as an illness.

Evidence summary: The World Health Organization's ICD-11 classification lists prolonged grief disorder among stress-associated conditions (World Health Organization [WHO], n.d.). A condition appearing in a classification system does not mean that grief after a suicide death is a disorder, and it does not mean any reader meets a diagnostic threshold. A clinician can discuss what support may be useful without applying a label.

Limitations: Classification systems describe categories, not treatment effectiveness. Nothing on this page should be read as a diagnosis or as a statement about your situation.

Family-Oriented and Relational Support

What it helps with: Changes inside a family or close relationships after a suicide death, including how the death is spoken about at home.

Evidence summary: Counselling here can be individual, family-oriented, or connected with community resources where that suits the person and the service scope. This description reflects the clinic's stated approach and service boundaries rather than a specific research finding, and no effectiveness claim is attached to it.

Limitations: No source in the evidence pack addresses family-oriented suicide bereavement work specifically. Availability depends on clinician and appointment type.

Connection With Community Bereavement Resources

What it helps with: Pairing individual counselling with peer or community support for people who want both.

Evidence summary: Specialised suicide bereavement resources exist in Edmonton, including CMHA Edmonton's Suicide Bereavement Support Services (CMHA Edmonton, n.d.). Canadian public health work on suicide has been organised through a national prevention framework (Government of Canada, 2016). These sources establish that dedicated supports and a national policy context exist, not that any specific programme produces a particular result.

Limitations: Programme details, eligibility, and current availability were not supplied and should be confirmed directly with the organisation.

What Results to Expect

Grief after a suicide death is not linear. Most people describe stretches where things feel steadier followed by periods that feel like going backwards, often around anniversaries, inquests, holidays, or news coverage. Going backwards for a while is not evidence that counselling is failing.

Some people notice shifts within a few months of starting. Others find longer-term work more useful, and some come back years later for a shorter piece of work. Several things influence how this goes, including your relationship to the person who died, how recent the death is, what else is happening in your life right now, the support around you, and how well you and your therapist work together.

No therapy guarantees an outcome, and no one here can tell you in advance how you will respond. Anyone who promises closure, healing, or recovery on a timeline is overstating what is known.

Therapeutic fit matters more than most people expect. If your therapist is not the right match, changing to a different clinician or a different approach is always available and does not require an explanation you find uncomfortable to give.

Confidentiality and Privacy

What you share in counselling is confidential. Your clinician keeps records and handles your information under Alberta's Health Information Act (HIA) and Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), and under the professional obligations applicable to their profession. Registered Psychologists and Registered Provisional Psychologists are regulated by the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP), Registered Social Workers are regulated by the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW), and Canadian Certified Counsellors (CCCs) are regulated by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA).

Confidentiality is important, and it is not absolute. Limits apply in specific circumstances, including:

• Risk of serious harm to you or to another person
• Suspected abuse or neglect of a child, which carries a mandatory reporting duty under Alberta law
• A court order or another legal or professional obligation to disclose

Your clinician explains these limits clearly in the first session, before you share anything personal, and will answer questions about them. If you want to understand exactly where the boundaries sit before you decide what to talk about, you can ask at the beginning of the session or raise it with the admin team beforehand.

Consent, recordkeeping, and the limits of confidentiality are reviewed at the start of care and can be revisited at any point afterward.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to describe what happened in detail?

No. You decide what to say and when. Some people never give a full account of the death and still find counselling useful, because much of the work can focus on how you are living now rather than on retelling the event. If your therapist asks something you do not want to answer, saying so is a legitimate answer and will not derail the session.

Is what I share kept private?

Yes, within limits set by Alberta law. Your information is handled under the Health Information Act (HIA) and the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), and your clinician follows the professional obligations applicable to their profession: CAP for Registered Psychologists and Registered Provisional Psychologists, ACSW for Registered Social Workers, and CCPA for Canadian Certified Counsellors (CCCs). Disclosure can be required where there is a risk of serious harm, a suspected child protection concern, or a court order. Your clinician goes through these limits in the first session. The confidentiality section above sets out the detail.

How many sessions will I need?

There is no fixed answer, and anyone who gives you a firm number before meeting you is guessing. Some people use a short series of sessions around a specific difficulty. Others work over a longer period, particularly where the loss sits alongside other things. Progress is reviewed with you at intervals, and the plan is adjusted rather than fixed at the start.

What if the therapist is not the right fit?

Fit matters, and it is reasonable to want a different clinician. You do not need to justify the decision or work up to a difficult conversation. Contact the admin team at 780-904-4880 and they can help you move to someone else, or use the Match with a Therapist tool to compare options. New clients may access their first session at 50% off to help find the right therapeutic fit.

Can I access therapy online?

Yes. Virtual sessions are available across Alberta and are 50 minutes, the same as in-person appointments. The same confidentiality standards and the same legal limits apply. Some people prefer virtual sessions for this topic because they can attend from a place where they feel able to speak freely.

Is suicide loss counselling different from general grief counselling?

It can be. Grief after a suicide death often carries questions, guilt, and social difficulty that other losses do not raise in the same way, including deciding who to tell and what to say. The approach still follows your circumstances and goals rather than assumptions about how this kind of grief should look. If broader grief support fits better, see Grief and Loss Therapy.

Will I be diagnosed, or does this include an assessment?

No on both counts. Seeking counselling after a suicide loss does not mean you have a mental health condition, and this service does not assign diagnoses. Psychological assessments are a separate service with their own process, purpose, and fees. If you think an assessment is what you actually need, ask the admin team and they can explain that pathway instead.

Can family members and children get support too?

Yes. Partners, parents, siblings, friends, and children affected by the same death often need quite different things, and they do not have to attend together. Individual or family-oriented options can be discussed based on who is involved and clinician availability. If you are supporting someone else through a loss, Supporting Someone Who Is Grieving may be useful.

Meet Your Clinicians

Counselling here is provided by Registered Psychologists, Registered Provisional Psychologists, Registered Social Workers, Canadian Certified Counsellors, Mental Health Therapists, and Student Therapists. All psychologists are registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists (CAP), which sets the standards of practice and handles complaints. Registered Provisional Psychologists practise under the supervision of a senior registered psychologist. Registered Social Workers are regulated by the Alberta College of Social Workers (ACSW). Canadian Certified Counsellors (CCCs) are regulated by the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA).

Clinicians differ in their training, experience, and areas of focus, and availability changes. Rather than assuming, you can read individual profiles on the Our Therapists page, use the Match with a Therapist tool, or call the admin team at 780-904-4880 and describe what you are looking for so they can point you toward a suitable clinician.

Children and Youth

Counselling is available for children, adolescents, and young adults affected by a suicide death, including siblings, children of the person who died, and classmates or teammates.

Therapists working with younger clients use approaches suited to the child's age and stage, which often means play, drawing, or activity rather than sustained talking. Clinicians also work with caregivers, because what happens at home between sessions matters as much as what happens in the room. That can include help with what to say about the death, how much to say, and how to answer the questions children ask later.

For related support, see Child and Youth Stress and Trauma.

Take the Next Step

If you would like to arrange counselling after a suicide loss, you can book a session online, use the Match with a Therapist tool, call 780-904-4880, or email info@wholesomepsychology.ca. The Getting Started with Therapy page explains what to expect before your first appointment.

New clients may access their first session at 50% off to help find the right therapeutic fit.

Starting the conversation is enough.

References

• Andriessen, K., Krysinska, K., Hill, N. T. M., Reifels, L., Robinson, J., Reavley, N., & Pirkis, J. (2019). Effectiveness of interventions for people bereaved through suicide: A systematic review of controlled studies of grief, psychosocial and suicide-related outcomes. BMC Psychiatry, 19, 49. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-019-2020-z
• Canadian Mental Health Association Edmonton. (n.d.). Suicide bereavement support services. Retrieved July 26, 2026, from https://edmonton.cmha.ca/brochure/suicide-bereavement-support-services/
• Government of Canada. (2016). Suicide prevention framework. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/healthy-living/suicide-prevention-framework.html
• World Health Organization. (n.d.). ICD-11 for mortality and morbidity statistics.

Content note: this page provides general service information. It is not emergency, medical, legal, or individualised mental health advice.