Grief Counseling Services in Minnesota
NorthStar Regional does not treat grief as a disorder: our grief counseling near Minneapolis, MN helps adults make a heavy loss carryable. The loss can be a person, a marriage, a job, or a future you planned on. Individual and family sessions run at our outpatient clinic in Shakopee and by secure video anywhere in Minnesota. Inside a full treatment system, grief that has turned into drinking gets treated in the same plan as the loss. We accept Medical Assistance (Medicaid) and most major insurers, and you set the pace, since grief follows no schedule.
Grief counseling at a glance
Not a disorder
Grief is not a disorder, and grief counseling doesn’t treat it like one.
Outpatient Mental Health Clinic | Shakopee
Individual and family grief sessions for clients at our outpatient clinic in Shakopee.
Telehealth statewide
Secure video therapy sessions bring support anywhere in Minnesota. That helps on the days when leaving the house feels like too much.
Every treatment program
Grief work can be part of recovery care for clients whose loss is part of the story.
Licensed Treatment Programs
Founded 2015
Addiction and mental health care in one system
Multiple Campuses
Across the Twin Cities metro
MN Department of Health: Licensed
MN Department of Human Services: Licensed
Grief and Loss
How We Help You Through Grief and Loss
What grief counseling does is make the load carryable. It is a supportive place where the loss can be spoken plainly, whether that is a person, a marriage, a job, or a future you had planned on. The anger, the relief, the guilt, and the regret all get to exist without judgment, because grieving deeply is the cost of caring deeply. A counselor can also help notice when grief has stayed raw for months or has turned into drinking.
Families often need this together and separately. When family members grieve the same loss in different ways, one person organizing, one drinking, one disappearing into work, they can end up hurt by how the others grieve. We see individuals and we see families, and we are honest about which your situation needs. Either way, you set the pace. Grief does not follow a schedule, so we do not put you on one.
Is this right for you?
Signs Grief Needs More Than Time
Time helps, but it does not do all the work, and being strong is not a plan. Here are the signs it might be time to talk to someone.
It's Been Months, and It's Still Running Your Days
Sleep, meals, work, the mail. The loss is affecting all of it, and that is not weakness. It is too much to handle alone, and you do not have to.
Life Is Stuck on Pause
Plans keep getting put off. The world has gotten smaller. Grief counseling helps life start moving again without leaving what you lost behind.
The Feelings Show Up Without Warning
Fine at the service, undone in the grocery store, wrecked by a song in the car. Nothing is wrong with you, and a counselor can help.
Getting Through the Evening Takes a Drink
What starts as a way to cope rarely stays small. Noticing it here, inside a treatment system, is exactly why this service exists.
Nobody Wants to Hear About It Anymore
The casseroles stopped. Everyone else moved on. You are still in it. A counselor’s whole job is to keep listening.
The "If Onlys" Won't Stop
The guilt, the conversations you replay, the argument with yourself at 2am. Grief that gets stuck like this can be treated, and the loop is not forever.
If even a few of these sound like you, that is reason enough to call. You do not need to be sure, and you do not need a diagnosis. Reading this for someone you love? Start with our guide for parents or our guide for spouses and partners.
When loss cuts deeper
When Loss Comes with Trauma
Some losses carry trauma inside them. When a death was sudden or violent, or when someone was taken too young, grief and trauma happen together. That means intrusive memories, avoiding anything tied to the loss, and feeling tense and on edge all the time. This is not just stronger ordinary grief. It is grief plus trauma. The trauma usually has to be treated before you can begin to work through the grief.
Grief therapy here can run alongside trauma work in one plan. The trauma work settles the alarm system so healing can start, and the grief work stays focused on the love and the loss.
How It Helps
When Grief Leads to Drinking or Drug Use
Loss is one of the most common relapse triggers. A lot of substance use starts as a way to manage grief. Because this counseling is part of a treatment system, the grief work and the recovery work can happen in one plan. So can the depression, anxiety, and trauma that loss so often brings with it.
For Addiction
Every substance we treat, from the first assessment through sober living. Each is explained in depth, substance by substance.
For Mental Health
At most NorthStar Regional campuses, these conditions are treated along with addiction as co-occurring care, all in one plan. Mental health treatment on its own is offered at our outpatient clinic in Shakopee. That includes therapy for depression, anxiety, and trauma. No established diagnosis is needed to contact us.
What to expect
What Grief Counseling Looks Like
Grief counseling moves at your pace and in your order, with a therapist who can tell the difference between grief that is slowly getting easier and grief that is not. There is no deadline.
Your Story, However You Can Tell It
No timeline to follow, nothing to perform. The first sessions are about what the loss is doing to your days, and what carrying it well would even look like for you. There are no right words. When the words will not come, sitting with someone who can handle the silence still counts.
Carrying It, Not Closing It
Sessions build the support that holds you up: rituals that help, untangling the guilt from the love, and learning what grief does to a body and a brain. You also plan for the hard dates instead of just surviving them: the birthday, the holiday, the anniversary. You do not stop loving or missing what you lost. Over time, the loss becomes something you can live with. Helping you get there is the goal of counseling.
For Grief That Gets Stuck or Gets Medicated
Your therapist watches for grief that is not getting easier and for grief that has turned into drinking, and will say so plainly if either shows up, along with what to do next. Feeling stuck does not mean something is wrong with you. It tells us what kind of help you need, and we use that to adjust your plan.
Where You'll Find It at NorthStar Regional
Where Grief Work Happens
At the clinic, by video, and inside recovery care when loss was part of what led to using.
The clinic
Outpatient Mental Health Clinic | Shakopee
Individual and family grief sessions for clients at our outpatient clinic in Shakopee.
From home
Telehealth Statewide
Secure video therapy sessions bring support anywhere in Minnesota. That helps on the days when leaving the house feels like too much.
Inside recovery
Every Treatment Program
Grief work can be part of recovery care for clients whose loss is part of the story.
Treatment Options
Explore Our Addiction and Mental Health Therapies
Recovery is rarely built on a single method. These are the addiction and mental health therapies and services available across NorthStar Regional, each explained in depth, and your comprehensive assessment determines the combination your treatment plan starts with.
Who's behind the work
About NorthStar Regional
NorthStar Regional is Minnesota’s treatment system built around access: alcohol and drug treatment centers and mental health care across multiple Twin Cities metro locations. Founded in 2015, we provide one connected continuum: detox (withdrawal management), residential, outpatient, mental health, and a sober housing pathway. Separate men’s and women’s campuses, co-occurring care at designated programs, and no faith requirement set us apart. We accept Medical Assistance (Medicaid) and most major insurers, and if you are uninsured, our admissions team helps you through enrollment. A person can walk in with nothing and leave with everything they need to build a life.
Paying for Care
Insurance and Payment Options
Our team helps review your benefits and handles the paperwork with you. If you have no insurance, we help walk you through enrolling for benefits. County case managers, probation officers, hospitals, and crisis teams send clients to us because, in their words, we just get it done.
Insurance and State Funding
Commercial plans, Medical Assistance (Medicaid), county placements, and private pay. We verify benefits and handle the paperwork with you.
We Are Here to Help
We help review your benefits, find your right starting point, and schedule you for the same day or the next whenever possible. Then we pick you up anywhere in the Twin Cities metro.
How Admission Works
What Happens From Your First Call to Your First Night
You did the hard part when you picked up the phone. Here is exactly what happens next, so nothing about day one is a mystery.
You Call and a Real Person Answers
A real person answers, usually within seconds, and asks one short question: substance use, or mental health? There is no phone tree, and you don’t have to tell your life story. We ask only what we need and handle the rest.
We Help with the Details
Our team helps review your benefits, and a short screening covers withdrawal risk, medical needs, and mental health, so you land at the right level of care. Then we schedule you, same day or next day whenever possible.
We Pick You Up
You get reminder calls and texts before pickup. For residential, your admissions coordinator and your driver also call you together, so you know who’s coming, what car to look for, and when to expect them. Many of our drivers are in long-term recovery themselves, and yours will help with your bags.
A Real Person Meets You When You Arrive
Your driver walks you inside and introduces you by name to the team member waiting for you. Your intake team completes your application with you. If you’re hungry, there’s a meal waiting. From there, treatment starts, and we help take care of the logistics along the way.
“The client has done the hard work by picking up the phone. We will carry them the rest of the way.”
Sarah Roy, Executive Vice President
Reviews from Google
Why Clients Choose NorthStar Regional
Don’t just take our word for it. Here is what alumni say about their time in treatment.
Keep reading
Related Articles and Resources
Resources
Before You Call
How admissions works, guides for families, and the forms you can complete early. More resources are linked throughout the site, or contact admissions and we’ll send anything by email.
Questions we hear every day
Common Questions About Grief Counseling
What is grief counseling?
Grief counseling is support from a trained counselor who helps you live with a loss. You don’t have to feel overwhelmed by it, and you don’t have to pretend you’re fine. Everyone grieves differently, and there’s no set timeline. With support, you don’t have to go through it alone. Grief counseling is available across Minnesota, and it may be easier to find than you expect.
Grief counseling vs. grief therapy: what's the difference?
The two terms often overlap. Grief counseling usually means supportive sessions for a recent or expected loss. Grief therapy usually means deeper clinical work for grief that isn’t easing, is tied to trauma, or is mixed with depression, anxiety, or substance use. At NorthStar Regional, the same clinicians offer both. Your comprehensive assessment helps show which kind of support fits, so you don’t have to figure that out before your first conversation.
When should someone see a grief counselor?
When the loss controls daily life: sleep gone, work slipping, daily challenges piling up, everything has felt gray for months, or when everyone else has ‘moved on’ and you can’t say the name out loud yet. And always when grief has started to involve drinking or drug use. Reach out sooner than feels necessary. Nobody regrets getting help early.
What is complicated grief?
Grief that gets stuck: months or years on, still as acute as week one, interfering with life and resistant to time. It responds to treatment, and it’s one of the things we specifically watch for. If you feel stuck, that’s a treatable state, not a character flaw, and there’s real hope in that.
Are grief support groups or one-on-one counseling better?
They do different work, and many people seek and gain from both. Support groups surround you with people who don’t need your words explained. Individual grief therapy goes deep on your own loss and what it’s doing to your life. Community grief support groups meet across Minneapolis and greater Minnesota. Your therapist can share contact details for ones that fit, to go alongside your therapy sessions.
How does grief relate to addiction?
Loss is one of the most common relapse triggers there is. For many people, the drinking or the using began as a way to manage grief. In those cases, grief therapy is relapse prevention, because treating the grief is treating the addiction. That is why this counseling lives inside a treatment system, woven through our recovery programs.
Do you counsel families grieving together?
Yes. We offer individual sessions, plus family sessions for households grieving the same loss in different ways. Those differences can lead to conflict, and many families don’t realize how common that is. Working on your relationships with each other can make it easier for each person to grieve.
Can grief counseling help with losses besides death?
Yes. Divorce, the end of a relationship, estrangement, a diagnosis, a career that ended, life transitions that closed a door for good: grief therapy applies to any loss that reorganizes a life. Grief after a life transition looks different from grief after a death, but it is still grief, and adults, young adults especially, often don’t realize that is what’s happening until the problems pile up. Any loss is reason enough to come in. You do not need to decide whether it counts.
Do you see grieving children or teens?
No. Our treatment programs serve adults 18 and older. Grief counseling for children and teens deserves a therapist who focuses on exactly that. Minnesota has dedicated children’s grief groups, and we’ll gladly point your family in the right direction. Any grieving adults in the house can get their own support here.
Will insurance cover grief counseling?
Coverage depends on your plan, the service, eligibility, and authorization requirements. Our team helps review your benefits and available payment options. Benefits verification is not a guarantee of payment.
Admissions
Make the First Call and We'll Take It from There
Confidential, no obligation, and answered by someone who knows what you’re facing and cares to listen.