the Price of Group Therapy

After two of my cats died within one week of each other, I was an absolute mess. My veterinarian suggested that I attend a pet loss therapy group that met twice a week for a few weeks. The meetings were free and were held in a local community room at the library. The meeting was run by a retired veterinarian and had quite a few members who attended regularly. I went to the meetings once a week for about 5 months, until I felt I had "moved on" from the trauma of my loss. The meetings started much like any other group therapy session, where you would introduce yourself and why you were there. We shared the stories of our lives with our pets and how they died. We shared our feelings each week and how we were dealing with our grief and progressing toward healing. We kept journals and often shared entries by reading them aloud to the group.

I would DEFINITELY recommend this type of group therapy to anyone who has lost a beloved pet companion. My cats are my fur babies, as I do not have any human children, so losing one of them is horrible. Losing two in a week, unthinkable. This group really helped me to move on and learn to celebrate my cats' lives rather than mourn their loss. It helped me to get through the grieving period and not be alone in that grief, as many of my friends and family do not understand the depth of the love I have for my cats.

Do not be afraid to join one of these group therapy sessions. If you are open to them, they will help you immensely. You get to be with others of like mind and like situation, so you do not feel alone in your own problems. I made friends that I am still in contact with to this day via this therapy.