Chelmsford · online by video, with the Hove room for occasional sessions
Bereavement and grief counselling for Chelmsford
When someone you love has died and Chelmsford carries on regardless, with the Liverpool Street trains still running, grief counselling sets aside a weekly hour in which the loss comes first. With Hove 101 minutes' drive from Chelmsford, we meet over secure video, you set the pace, and nobody puts a date on feeling better.
If you are thinking about ending your life, call 999 or the Samaritans free on 116 123, day or night. More urgent help is on this page.
The practical facts for Chelmsford
- Where sessions happen
- A private room at Intergen House, 65-67 Western Road, Hove BN3 2JQ, or secure video.
- From Chelmsford by car
- About 101 minutes with clear roads (84.5 miles); longer at busy times.
- Free bereavement helpline
- Cruse Bereavement Support helpline, 0808 808 1677
- Fees
- £80 for 60 minutes, £100 for 90, £120 for 120. The first 15-minute call is free.
- Registration
- BACP registered member, no. 109340 (check the register); UKCP student member in advanced psychotherapy training.
Grieving in a city that keeps on moving
Chelmsford keeps moving after a death. Trains still leave for Liverpool Street five times an hour, the new streets at Beaulieu Park and Chancellor Park keep filling, and work expects you back once the funeral is over. Grief rarely keeps to that schedule. You might find yourself unable to drive along Court Road past Broomfield Hospital because of the last days you spent there. You might have moved to Chelmsford for work, so the funeral took place somewhere else and the friends you've made here never knew the person you lost. If you cared for a parent in Writtle or Galleywood for years, the house can feel painfully quiet without the visits, the tablets to sort and the daily phone calls. A Sunday in Hylands Park can be bearable one week and impossible the next. None of that means you're grieving wrongly. It means the loss is large, and it deserves somewhere to be spoken about.
Grief without stages or deadlines
Grief has no fixed stages to pass through and no date by which it ought to ease, so our sessions follow what is there on the day. Some weeks you may want to tell me who they were: the stories, the jokes, the conversations by the hospital bed. Other weeks it's the practical weight, the probate letters, sorting a wardrobe, the first birthday without them. Guilt, relief and anger are all welcome in our sessions, and after months of visits to Broomfield or a relationship that was never easy, they often turn up together. When a death came without warning, or by suicide, shock can lie beneath every other feeling, so we move gently, and you are never asked to recount the details. Grief can also tangle with drinking. A glass to get through the evening can quietly become several, and because I know recovery from the inside, we can talk about the drink and the grief side by side, without judgement. Counselling puts no time limit on missing someone. It gives you a steady place to carry it, with someone alongside.
Kinds of loss that can weigh on you in Chelmsford
The last days at Broomfield
If someone you love died at Broomfield Hospital, the wards, the car park and the road home can hold those days. We can talk about them whenever you're ready.
When a Farleigh patient dies
If they were cared for by Farleigh Hospice, its bereavement team considers one-to-one support for family and carers after three months, and our sessions can come before or alongside it.
Caring right up to the end
Caring until someone dies can leave a silence, an empty diary and an unexpected relief. We make room for all of it, including an exhaustion you may only now be noticing.
Far from family on a new estate
If you moved to Beaulieu Park or Chancellor Park for work, the people who knew the person you lost may live elsewhere, and grief can feel very solitary.
Free bereavement support for Chelmsford
Farleigh Hospice runs a free Chelmsford Bereavement Help Point on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month, 10.30am to 12pm, upstairs at Strongs on Springfield Road, with no booking needed, and a Bereavement Open Group on the 3rd Wednesday evening at the hospice on North Court Road. Beyond Chelmsford, the national Cruse Bereavement Support helpline is another option, and weekly sessions with me can sit beside the Farleigh groups and the helpline alike.
- Free bereavement helplineCruse Bereavement Support helpline0808 808 1677Free, from trained volunteers. Open Monday and Wednesday to Friday 9.30am to 5pm, Tuesday 1pm to 8pm.
- Free NHS talking therapyMid Essex Talking TherapiesFree NHS talking therapy for low mood or anxiety that has settled in after a loss. You can refer yourself, with no GP referral needed.
- If drinking or drug use is part of itOpen Road Adult Drug and Alcohol Service (Essex)Chelmsford centre 01245 284772; Basildon centre 01268 531435Free and confidential.
- Local organisationMid and North East Essex MindMental health charity.
- Local organisationFarleigh Hospice bereavement support
- Local organisationCarers First (Essex adult carer support service)
- Local organisationSamaritans of Chelmsford and Mid Essex
If someone at home is hurting, threatening or controlling you, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is free, day or night, on 0808 2000 247.
If you need urgent help now
If you need help right now, please don't wait for a session.
Local drop-in crisis support: Mid Essex Sanctuary (Mid and North East Essex Mind) (check opening times before you go).
What people in Chelmsford ask before starting
How long after a death can I start grief counselling from Chelmsford?
Whenever you feel ready, whether that's a few weeks after the funeral or several years later; there's no point at which it is too early or too late. Book a free 15-minute call, tell me a little about who died, and we'll find a weekly video slot. No GP referral is needed, and I'll be straightforward about when I have space.
Is there a free bereavement drop-in in Chelmsford?
Yes. Farleigh Hospice holds its Chelmsford Bereavement Help Point at Strongs, 74 Springfield Road, on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday mornings of each month, and you can simply turn up. Its Bereavement Open Group for adults meets one Wednesday evening a month at the hospice. Either can sit comfortably beside weekly counselling with me.
Can grief counselling from Chelmsford be done online rather than in Hove?
Yes, and from Chelmsford that is usually the practical choice, since the drive is around 101 minutes. On screen you can stay at home with their things around you, and you avoid a long trip on a day when the loss feels raw. If you'd value a face-to-face session at some point, we can arrange one in Hove.
My mum died at Broomfield and I keep going over her last week. Is that something we could work on together?
Yes. Going back over the final days, what was said, what wasn't, whether a different decision would have changed anything, is a very common part of grief after a hospital death. In sessions you can talk it through at your own speed, and we can look at the guilt or regret tucked into those memories. Should those memories of Broomfield ever become too much to bear, ring one of the numbers in the urgent help box on this page straight away.
How much do sessions cost, and is the first call free?
Sessions are £80 for 60 minutes, £100 for 90 minutes and £120 for 120 minutes, the same in person in Hove or by video. The first 15-minute call is free, with no obligation to book. There is no NHS referral needed to see me privately.
Tell me about the person who died
When you feel ready, a short conversation is the easiest way to see whether we are a good fit. There is no obligation.