Grief Counselors
The loss of a loved one can have a profound impact on the rest of one’s life. For many people, speaking with a trained grief counselor has helped them navigate the grieving process and the wide range of emotional challenges that come with loss.
At Alive, our team of grief counselors has experience working with a full spectrum of ages and life experiences. Thanks to our donors, services are offered on a sliding scale, and no one is turned away.
To learn more contact us at 615-963-4732 griefsupport@alivehospice.org.
Stephanie Larson, MSW
MSSW, University of Tennessee Knoxville
Clinical Highlights: Stephanie uses a “companioning model” to provide trauma-informed, client-centered grief care. She has a special proficiency working with bereaved children and adolescents under the age of 18 and partners with local school districts to facilitate school-based grief support programs. She holds a certificate in Veterinary Social Work from UTK with a clinical focus in animal related grief and bereavement.
Quote: “Grief, I say, come in. Sit down. I have tea. There is honey. This will take as long as it takes.”
– This Hallowed Wilderness
Rebekah Near, LCAT, CAGS
Clinical Highlights: Rebekah is a licensed creative arts therapist (LCAT), artist, author, teacher, and dreamer. She has worked for several years in the Hospice and pediatric palliative care arena integrating expressive arts into the field of Thanatology, with a research focus on how expressive arts therapy can transform the grieving process with children/ adolescents who are dying and or bereaved. Rebekah is an international and national presenter on the expressive arts and grief. She takes a person centered humanistic, creative and somatic approach to engage with clients of all ages. Rebekah believes that unlike any other method the arts offer unique ways of understanding ourselves and the world around us. The arts allow us to enter our grief, building bridges between our emotions and intellect. (Near, 2012)
Quote: “Art is the language of the grieving heart.”
― Rebekah Near
Sherri McLario, LPC
MS, Georgia State University; Graduate Diploma in Christian Counseling from Psychological Studies Institute
Clinical Highlights: Licensed Professional Counselor with extensive experience working with adolescents and adults. As a practitioner, Sherri utilizes a companioning model to support grieving clients. She provides trauma-informed, client-centered grief care in her groups and individual counseling.
Quote: “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”
― Jamie Anderson
Dr. Joy Samuels, LPC/MHSP
Alive Volunteer
Clinical Highlights: Dr. Joy R Samuels is a Licensed Professional Counselor (Mental Health Service Provider), a Fellow in Thanatology, and ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ, retired) She teaches in the graduate Clinical Mental Health Psychology Department at Lipscomb University, and presents the 1 Day ‘’Counseling Grief Clients’, and the 2 Day Treatment Certification Course: Evidence-Based Strategies for Helping Clients Make Meaning After Loss’‘ for PESI. Joy has over 35 years of experience as a licensed professional counselor, chaplain, and ordained minister.
Quote: “We tell ourselves stories to remind ourselves who we were and who we are becoming.”
― Joy Samuels
Teresa Yarbrough, RN, LPC
BSN, University of Texas-Arlington; MA, Colorado Christian University
Clinical Highlights: Experienced group facilitator including sudden loss and spouse loss. Trained in the Companioning Model of grief treatment with special proficiency in anticipatory loss, and grief in patients with advanced illness. Utilizes a Narrative Therapy approach to grief counseling with a special interest in poetry.
Quote: “We grieve and heal in community.”
– Unknown
