Grief Support in Orange County: A Guide to Finding the Right Help
Grief can be incredibly personal, but finding support shouldn't have to be difficult.
Orange County has a wide range of grief resources, including community support groups, hospice bereavement programs, therapists, faith communities, grief coaches, and specialized organizations.
The challenge is often knowing where to begin.
This guide was created by The Outer Circle to help people throughout Orange County understand the different kinds of grief support available and find the type of help that may be right for them.
You Don't Have to Know Exactly What You Need
There isn't one correct way to get support for grief.
Some people want to sit with others who have experienced a similar loss. Others want professional mental-health treatment. Some need practical tools for navigating everyday life. Others find meaning through faith, nature, ritual, movement, creativity, or community.
And grief isn't limited to death.
People may grieve after:
• The death of someone they love
• Divorce or the end of a relationship
• Pregnancy loss or infertility
• The loss of a career or business
• Retirement
• Serious illness or disability
• Caregiving
• Moving away from a community
• Changes in identity or purpose
• Addiction or overdose within a family
• The death of a pet
• Other major life transitions
Different losses—and different people—may require different forms of support.
Grief Support Groups and Community Resources in Orange County
Orange Hospice provides hospice and bereavement support in Orange County and currently offers a Grief Support Circle for people who have lost someone or are caring for a loved one.
The program is structured as a six-week series with weekly facilitated meetings designed to provide a compassionate and nonjudgmental place to share and connect with others.
Jewish Collaborative of Orange County
The Jewish Collaborative of Orange County's Jewish Bereavement Support Network provides grief and pastoral resources, including an in-person bereavement support group at the Merage JCC in Irvine.
While rooted in Jewish community and tradition, its bereavement programming emphasizes connection and the importance of not navigating grief alone.
The City of Irvine's Older Adult Services maintains several community support programs.
Current offerings include support for people who have experienced the loss of a spouse as well as a Loss of a Child group sponsored by The Compassionate Friends.
Some programs have specific age or registration requirements, so contact the program before attending.
GriefShare is a faith-based grief-support program offered through churches and community organizations around the country.
Multiple Orange County congregations host GriefShare programs, including programs in Irvine and other Orange County communities.
Because individual groups operate on their own schedules, check GriefShare's current group directory for upcoming meetings.
Family Services Orange County provides professionally led bereavement support groups designed to address loneliness, loss and isolation following the death of someone close.
Programs have included groups in Irvine and Laguna Woods as well as support for family caregivers.
Light of Grief is an Orange County organization with an especially broad understanding of loss.
Its work recognizes grief connected not only with death but also experiences such as divorce, infertility, illness, caregiving, job loss, retirement, identity changes and other life transitions.
Its programs include community experiences, education, resources and other forms of grief support.
Finding a Grief Therapist in Orange County
Sometimes grief becomes intertwined with depression, trauma, anxiety, substance use, relationship difficulties, or other mental-health concerns.
A licensed mental-health professional may be the appropriate form of support in these circumstances.
Psychology Today's Orange County grief directory currently lists licensed therapists and therapist-led grief groups throughout communities including Irvine, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Tustin, Laguna Niguel and other parts of Orange County.
When choosing a therapist, consider asking about their experience with your particular type of loss and the therapeutic approaches they use.
Hospice Bereavement Support
Hospice organizations can be an excellent—and sometimes overlooked—source of grief support.
Many provide bereavement counseling, support groups, education and community resources to family members following a death.
Orange County's Office on Aging maintains grief-and-loss resources that include hospital and hospice-related bereavement programs.
If someone you loved received hospice care, consider contacting that hospice directly and asking what bereavement services are available to family members.
Faith-Based Grief Support
For some people, grief raises spiritual questions as much as emotional ones.
Churches, synagogues and other faith communities throughout Orange County provide bereavement groups, pastoral care, memorial practices and community support.
Programs such as GriefShare are explicitly Christian, while the Jewish Collaborative of Orange County provides Jewish bereavement and pastoral resources.
You do not have to choose faith-based support simply because you belong to a faith community. But for people whose spiritual beliefs are important to how they understand death, suffering and meaning, these communities can provide an important layer of support.
What Is Grief Coaching?
Grief coaching occupies a different role from psychotherapy.
Rather than diagnosing or treating mental-health conditions, coaching can focus on practical tools for navigating life with loss.
At The Outer Circle, grief coaching may include reflection, journaling, walking, meditation, creative work, personal rituals, practical tasks, time in nature and other approaches designed to help a person develop their own relationship with grief.
The goal isn't to erase what happened.
It's to discover how the loss can become part of your continuing story without becoming the entirety of your story.
Nature-Based Grief Support
Sometimes a traditional office isn't where someone feels most able to talk about loss.
Nature-based grief work uses outdoor environments as part of the experience.
A session might involve walking, sitting somewhere quiet, observing the natural environment, reflection, conversation, or another activity appropriate to the individual.
The purpose isn't to prescribe a particular outdoor activity. It's to create space for grief outside of the environments where people often feel pressure to perform, explain themselves, or appear okay.
The Outer Circle offers nature-based grief coaching in the greater Orange County area.
Grief Beyond Death
One reason The Outer Circle created this guide is that people often don't recognize their experience as grief.
We commonly associate grief with death, but profound loss can happen in many other areas of life.
A divorce can involve grieving a person, a family structure, a home and an imagined future.
Losing a career or business can involve grief over identity, community, financial security and years of work.
Illness can bring grief for abilities or independence.
Retirement can create grief alongside freedom.
Even positive changes can involve losing something that once defined us.
Naming an experience as grief doesn't make it pathological.
Sometimes it simply gives us a better language for understanding why a change hurts as much as it does.
Coaching, Therapy, or a Support Group?
You don't necessarily have to choose only one.
A support group may be helpful when: you want connection with people who have experienced similar losses and want to feel less alone.
A therapist may be appropriate when: grief is accompanied by significant mental-health symptoms, trauma, serious impairment, safety concerns, or issues requiring diagnosis or clinical treatment.
A grief coach may be helpful when: you want practical tools, reflection, accountability and support as you learn how to incorporate loss into your continuing life.
Hospice bereavement may be helpful when: you're grieving the death of someone who received hospice or end-of-life care, or when a local hospice makes community bereavement programming available.
Pastoral or spiritual support may be helpful when: grief has raised questions involving faith, meaning, ritual, death or spiritual identity.
Using more than one form of support can be entirely appropriate.
When You Need Immediate Help
Grief can sometimes become overwhelming.
If you are in immediate danger or believe you may hurt yourself or someone else, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department.
If you are experiencing a mental-health, suicide, or substance-use crisis in the United States, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Grief coaching is not crisis intervention or emergency mental-health care.
A Note From The Outer Circle
We created this guide because we don't believe every grieving person who finds The Outer Circle necessarily needs The Outer Circle.
You deserve the kind of support that's appropriate for what you're experiencing.
Sometimes that may be coaching. Sometimes it will be therapy. Sometimes it may be a hospice group, faith community, peer-support organization, or simply finding people who understand the particular loss you're carrying.
Our hope is that this page makes finding that support a little easier.
If you'd like to learn about grief coaching through The Outer Circle, you can explore our approach or schedule a free consultation.
The Outer Circle
Orange County, California + virtual grief coaching
Let your grief be part of your story.