Treating childhood trauma in adult clients: Best practices for therapists
Summary
Assess clients' digital habits early in grief counseling in the digital age by asking how social media, digital memories, and online interactions with the deceased are affecting their grief and daily functioning.
Encourage clients to identify patterns by tracking intentional and unexpected digital reminders before introducing gradual changes to their online behaviors.
Help clients create a personalized plan to manage digital triggers, set healthy boundaries, navigate memorial accounts, and strengthen offline coping strategies.
Incorporate virtual bereavement therapy and other digital resources such as online support groups, mindfulness apps, and virtual communities to expand access to meaningful grief support.
In today’s society, so much of life happens in the digital space; we communicate via text and email, we share our photos on social media platforms, and we store our memories on the cloud. For many, the digital space acts as a record of life.
But what happens to that record when someone dies? And, more specifically, how does that digital record impact their loved ones and how they ultimately grieve the loss?
The digital age has profoundly changed the way we grieve—and as the grieving process has changed, therapists have had to adjust their approach to counseling in order to address the unique challenges the digital age presents to the grieving process and better support their clients as they navigate loss.
But how has today’s digital-centric society made grieving—and grief counseling—more difficult? And as a therapist, how can you provide effective grief counseling in the digital age—and provide your clients the support they need to navigate loss in an increasingly connected world?
In what ways does the digital age make grieving more difficult?
The digital age has created new and unique challenges for people who are grieving a loss—including random (and often unwanted) reminders of loss.
“In the digital age, grief no longer unfolds solely within the psyche or the body—it is repeatedly activated by external systems,” says Tawanna Marie Woolfolk, LCSW, a Connecticut-based trauma, grief and attachment specialist. “This can interrupt the natural oscillation between loss-oriented and restoration-oriented grieving, keeping clients in a heightened state of emotional reactivity rather than integration.”
For example, “you might be having a decent day when suddenly Facebook surfaces a video of your late mother, or your phone creates an automatic slideshow of your deceased partner,” says Ashley Peña, LCSW, National Executive Director of outpatient mental health provider Mission Connection. “These algorithmic ‘memories’ don't care about your emotional state; they just appear, reopening wounds at completely random moments.”
Essentially, “the digital world doesn't respect the natural rhythm of grief,” says Heather Z. Lyons, PhD, licensed psychologist and owner of the Baltimore Therapy Group and the Providence Therapy Group. “It brings up painful reminders when people might not be emotionally prepared.”
Digital spaces also provide constant accessibility to content that triggers grief, like photos on a social media profile or videos stored on a cell phone—which, for many, can make it harder to get out from under their grief.
“Digital traces of our loved ones never really go away; their text messages, profiles, and photos are always just a click away,” says Peña. “This constant accessibility can prevent people from finding the natural rhythm of leaning into grief when they're ready and stepping back when they need to.”
For example, “some clients check their loved one's profile compulsively, dozens of times a day, unable to create any distance,” says Peña.
Finally, public-facing digital platforms, like social media, can put pressure on people to grieve in a certain way and/or in a certain time frame—and that added pressure can make an already devastating situation even harder.
“My clients tell me they feel pressured to post the ‘right’ things or look like they're grieving ‘correctly,’” says Peña. “It's exhausting to manage everyone else's expectations while you're barely holding it together.”
In what ways does the digital age make grief counseling more challenging?
Clearly, the digital age has created new challenges for people navigating grief. But it’s also created new challenges for therapists helping grieving clients.
For example, as a therapist, if you want to help your client through virtual bereavement therapy or grief counseling in the digital age, you now not only need to understand their relationship to the person they lost, but also their relationship to the digital space—and how the two are interconnected.
“I now assess an entirely new dimension, which is my clients' digital relationship with the deceased,” says Peña. “I need to understand their social media habits, whether they're maintaining accounts, and what's triggering them online.”
The unpredictability of digital triggers can also make grief treatment in the digital age more challenging. “Clients may be neurologically unprepared for sudden reminders, which can lead to emotional flooding, dissociation, or avoidance,” says Woolfolk.
“A client might be making real progress, then get completely derailed by an algorithm-generated photo montage the next day,” says Peña.
Finally, because these digital challenges are fairly new, there’s not necessarily a universal approach on how to address these challenges in treatment—which can put pressure on therapists. “I'm also navigating new ethical territory without a clear playbook,” says Peña. “When clients ask if they should delete text messages or maintain their child's Instagram account, there's no established guidance for these deeply personal decisions.”
Grief counseling in the digital age: How to best support clients
Does the digital space present new challenges, both for people grieving and the therapists who treat them? Yes. Fortunately, there are practical strategies therapists can use to strengthen grief counseling in the digital age and better support clients both online and offline.
Let’s take a look at a few best practices for grief counseling in the digital age.
Assess how digital spaces are impacting the client’s grief journey
Some people spend the majority of their time interacting with the digital world, while others only use technology when absolutely necessary. So, before you get too far into grief counseling in the digital age, it’s important to assess the client’s relationship with digital spaces—and how those spaces are impacting their grief journey.
Ask the client about their digital connection to the person they lost, how they’re engaging with that connection as they grieve, and how digital reminders of their loved one makes them feel; then, use that information to determine if and how to address the digital connection in treatment.
For example, you might ask:
How often are you visiting your loved one’s social media profiles?
How do you feel after engaging with your loved one’s digital footprint?
How do you react to unexpected digital reminders of your loved one?
Do you feel like you’re in control of your digital connection with your loved one—or do you struggle to disconnect?
“The clearest sign I need to address [this] directly is when digital behaviors are interfering with daily functioning, like avoiding new memories because they're fixated on old digital ones, or when online habits are increasing anxiety or depression,” says Peña.
Keep in mind that how and how often the client is engaging their loved one through digital spaces is less important than how it makes them feel.
The key is to “look for whether their digital connection is helping or hindering their daily functioning,” says Lyons. “Some people find comfort in checking their loved one's profile occasionally, while others get stuck checking in ways that verge into obsessive [territory].”
Navigating technology's role in continuing bonds
If, after assessment, it’s clear that your client needs support in navigating their digital continuing bonds with their deceased loved one, it’s important to start slowly.
Often, “people already know these habits aren't serving them, but they need support acknowledging it,” says Peña. So, rather than pushing them to make changes right away, invite them to notice their digital engagement and how it’s impacting their grieving process.
For example, you might ask them to write down every time they engage with their deceased loved one’s digital footprint, whether it was intentional (like visiting their social media profile) or unintentional (like a memory that popped up on their phone), and how it made them feel. Then, you can review those results in grief counseling to look for any patterns to determine if and how the digital connection may be making the grieving process harder.
If the client determines that they are ready to address their behaviors through grief counseling, “start gradual,” says Peña. “Maybe reduce checking a profile from 10 times a day to five, or set specific times for looking at photos rather than doing it randomly.”
Keep in mind that this process can take time. “The deeper work usually happens a few months in, once the acute crisis has settled but they're still grieving hard,” says Peña. “By then, clients have enough perspective to see patterns in their digital behavior and are ready to examine whether those patterns are helping or hurting.”
Help clients create an actionable plan to navigate digital triggers and address behaviors
Once clients are ready to start exploring their digital continuing bond and connection with their loved one, they’ll likely have questions about what the process will actually look like. For example, how are they supposed to handle digital memories of their lost loved ones—or the deceased’s social media accounts?
As a therapist, one of the most valuable things you can do is help them create a plan for how to address those questions and move forward.
“Therapists can support clients in developing conscious, values-aligned boundaries with digital content,” says Woolfolk. “This may include curating social media feeds, muting memory reminders, setting time-limited rituals for viewing photos, or intentionally deciding how to engage with memorialized accounts.”
While the plan—and what it addresses—will vary from client to client, in general, you should help clients create a plan for:
How to handle unexpected digital triggers: “Digital triggers are unpredictable—and sometimes even intrusive,” says Lyons. As such, it’s important to help clients determine how to handle these triggers before they come up.
How to set digital boundaries: As a therapist, you can also help clients “create ‘digital grief boundaries’ like turning off memory notifications, unfollowing certain accounts temporarily, or setting specific times to look at photos intentionally,” says Peña.
How to grieve offline: Helping clients find real-life outlets for grieving—like visiting a meaningful place, performing a ritual, or doing a creative project to process their grief—can often help them disconnect from unhealthy digital grieving patterns. “When connection needs are being met in other ways, the compulsive digital seeking usually decreases naturally,” says Peña.
How to handle administrative duties: If the client is responsible for the loved one’s digital footprint (for example, if they created a digital memorial or have been put in charge of closing the deceased’s social media accounts or storing digital photos), you should also address how they can manage that footprint while also respecting their grieving process.
How to handle backslides: Grief isn’t a linear process—and even if a client sets boundaries around how they engage with digital spaces and content related to their lost loved one, chances are, they’ll have periods where they lose control. As a therapist, it’s important to remind them that this is totally normal and help them create a plan for how to handle these backslides if and when they happen. This can “help clients make conscious decisions about engagement rather than continuing out of habit,” says Peña.
Again, this plan will look different for every client. But having a plan can make clients feel more empowered—and help them better navigate the digital-specific challenges associated with grieving in today’s society.
If the client has resistance, make sure to emphasize that this plan is not designed to fully disconnect from their loved one; instead, “they're creating less painful ways to stay connected,” says Peña.
“The goal is not erasure, but agency—helping clients choose when and how they connect with memories in ways that support regulation, meaning-making, and self-trust,” says Woolfolk.
Incorporate digital tools and resources into the treatment process
While the digital space can clearly present challenges to the grieving process, the opposite is also true; it can also provide helpful tools and resources that can support the grieving process and help clients navigate their grief.
Grief counseling in the digital age may include:
Virtual bereavement therapy groups
Online forums or communities
Audio resources, like podcasts or guided meditations
Skills-based tools and apps, like mindfulness or somatic regulation tools
Sharing these relevant tools and resources with your clients can help them leverage their relationship with the digital world as a way to better navigate their grief—not just as a way to trigger it.
Tips for how to facilitate virtual grief groups
As a therapist, you can point your clients toward virtual grief groups—or you can launch one of your own and support them directly.
If you’re thinking about facilitating a virtual grief group, here are a few tips to keep in mind:
Create a safe space. Talking about and working through grief in an online group can be an extremely vulnerable experience. As such, “psychological safety must be established explicitly in virtual spaces,” says Woolfolk. “Clear group agreements, predictable structure, permission to turn cameras off, and somatic check-ins are essential.”
Keep groups small. In order to provide the best support to clients—and to create a space where clients feel comfortable talking openly about their grief—it’s best to keep virtual grief groups small. “Smaller group sizes allow for better containment,” says Woolfolk.
Plan for tech issues. Facilitating a virtual grief group relies on technology—and, at some point, that technology will likely fail. To avoid tech issues interrupting the therapeutic process, “plan for tech failures with grace,” says Peña. “Have a backup phone number, a clear protocol if you get disconnected, and model patience when glitches happen. Keep the focus on connection, not perfection.”
Sources
Cooper, S. (2023) The benefits and challenges of grieving online. Counseling Today.
The Loss Foundation. (2025). Support group facilitator training: Skills every leader needs.
Lyons, H. Z. (2026) Personal interview.
Peña, A. (2026) Personal interview.
Riaz, Farwa, Ayesha Mustafa, A. (2025). Digital mourning and the evolution of grief: A review of social media's role in shaping contemporary bereavement practices. Scholars Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
Woolfolk, T. M. (2026) Personal interview.
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