Confidential Grief
A therapist's guide to client suicide, death, and the impact on practice
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Client death is a real but often unspoken part of clinical practice. When a client dies by suicide, illness, or accident, therapists are left to manage not only personal grief but also clinical, ethical, and professional responsibilities, often with limited guidance or support structures that fully account for the complexity of the experience.
Confidential Grief is written for these moments. It draws on lived clinical experience to explore what follows a client’s death, including the emotional impact on the therapist, the demands of ongoing practice, and the need to find language for experiences that are frequently left unspoken in training and supervision. Now available to purchase
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About the Book
Client death is a reality of therapeutic work, but it is rarely addressed in a sustained or practical way within training, supervision, or professional discourse. When it occurs, practitioners are often left to manage a combination of grief, ethical responsibility, and clinical continuity without a clear framework for what comes next.
Feedback from a practising therapist:
Feedback from a practising therapist:
"I found it an essential read for us therapists - very informative and comprehensive. There are things I had not thought about. I was moved to tears on several occasions. This disenfranchised grief is still with me when I think about my 'lost' clients. And it's something we can hardly share, a very isolating experience." - Sylvie Deroche, EFS & ESSM Certified Psycho-Sexologist
This book offers a grounded, practice-based account of that experience. It explores what happens when a therapist loses a client, including the immediate and longer-term emotional impact, the demands of professional decision-making, and the often unspoken question of how to continue working while affected.
It is not a theoretical overview. It is written from within clinical practice, for practitioners who need clarity, language, and structure when facing situations that sit outside standard models of training and preparation.
It is not a theoretical overview. It is written from within clinical practice, for practitioners who need clarity, language, and structure when facing situations that sit outside standard models of training and preparation.
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Who This Is For
This book is for:
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What You’ll Gain
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About the Author
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Laura Harley is a BACP-accredited counsellor working in private practice with adults experiencing grief, relational difficulty, and complex emotional states that do not resolve through straightforward therapeutic approaches.
Her work is shaped by long-term clinical experience and a focus on the less visible dimensions of therapeutic practice, particularly the internal impact of holding intense or destabilising material in the therapy room. Confidential Grief draws directly on her experience of client death in practice and the absence of clear, practical guidance available to therapists navigating these situations. 
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Laura Harley BSc (Hons) Adv. Dip. Counselling MBACP (Accred)
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