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Are you a therapist that specializes in grief and trauma counseling? How can you develop your skillset to work with clients through grief? Why is grief counselling a universal need?
In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok speaks about grief and trauma healing with Ashley Mielke.
Podcast Sponsor: Therapy Notes
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Meet Ashley Mielke

Ashley Mielke is a Registered Psychologist, Founder, and CEO of a large group private practice in Alberta, Canada called The Grief and Trauma Healing Centre Inc. She is passionate about supporting heart-centered practice owners in starting, growing, and scaling their businesses.
Ashley was called to start her company after the tragic death of her father by suicide in 2010. It was the purpose she found through her healing that inspired the ‘WHY’ that drives her 7-figure company today. It brings Ashley great joy to support other heart-centered leaders in building successful practices that are aligned with both their business goals and their deepest calling.
Visit The Grief and Trauma Healing Centre and connect with them on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
In This Podcast
- Being a heart-centered practice
- A masterclass on grief and trauma healing
- How to build your skills
- Ashley’s advice to private practitioners
Being a heart-centered practice
To maintain a group practice that specializes in grief and trauma healing, Ashley and her team are open and heart-centered when it comes to sharing their personal experiences of grief in their lives.
When we are hiring people to the team to join … we ask them about their personal loss experiences, and how those experiences have shaped them, and why it is important that they show up to help grieving people.
Ashley Mielke
By doing this, Ashley, her team, and the private practice are known as a heart-centered space where therapists are passionate about providing healing to clients both through having had a personal grief experience and through a resilient skillset.
At the foundation of what we do really comes from the Grief and Recovery Institute and … the grief and recovery method, so that’s what we’re known for.
Ashley Mielke
Being heart-centred translates to always choosing love. To be authentic, warm, and create a space for true humanness.
A masterclass on grief and trauma healing
- Realize that loss lies beneath most of the issues that people deal with.
If you look at someone through the lens of loss and they’re talking about some presenting symptoms like anxiety or depression, loss of meaning or purpose, I would want to know what happened. What are the losses that are underlying some of those symptoms?
Ashley Mielke
- A grieving person just wants to be seen, heard, and witnessed in their experience. They do not want to be fixed because grief cannot be “fixed”. It can only be worked through with love, patience, and acceptance.
- View a person’s grief through the human lens instead of seeing it as a mental health issue because it is a normal human process that everyone in the world goes through.
By seeing grief just as grief and not something to be fixed, you earn that person’s trust.
How to build your skills
If you are a therapist that is either currently assisting clients with grief and trauma healing, or you want to develop your skillset to be able to do that, then follow and attain the Grief Recovery Method certification.
You can take the online four-day certification training.
It’s highly educational, it integrates many different therapeutic perspectives and it actually is a roadmap to walk someone through a loss in their life. It’s an actionable tool, and that’s what’s so amazing about it.
Ashley Mielke
Additionally, in working with trauma, Ashley recommends that therapists work with EMDR therapy as well as somatic-based therapies.
Ashley’s advice to private practitioners
Pursue the desires of your heart! If it’s joining a Mastermind, attending trainings, or launching a private practice, give your dream a go.
Sponsors mentioned in this episode:
- Don’t waste any more of your time, and try TherapyNotes.
- What’s your phase of practice?
Useful links mentioned in this episode:
- Visit The Grief and Trauma Healing Centre and connect with them on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
- Connect with Ashley Mielke on Instagram and LinkedIn.
- Find out more about Group Practice Launch
- Visit practiceofthepractice.com/apply and join our membership communities!
- Check out practiceofthepractice.com/invite to join Next Level Practice
Check out these additional resources:
- Incorporating ACT, CBT, and Mindfulness into Anger and Anxiety Work with Alisa Kamis-Brinda | POP 866
- Apply to work together
- Events – click on the event’s dropdown
- Sign up to join the free webinars and events here
- Podcast Launch School
- Practice of the Practice Podcast Network
- Free resources to help you start, grow, and scale
- Apply to work with us — a decision-making matrix for your next steps
Meet Joe Sanok
Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.
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