The Rock House, a college ministry branch of the College Church of Christ, is offering group grief counseling sessions Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. for students struggling with any type of grief.
Todd Gentry, a campus minister for The Rock House, along with other leaders, noticed the large number of students dealing with grief and wanted to provide an opportunity for them to gather with other students with similar struggles.
“At the first meeting there was a sigh of ‘I’m not alone,'” Gentry said. “For a lot of these students, they go home and someone is missing, so they aren’t so sure they want to go home. It was nice for them to be around people who felt the same way.”
Stephanie O’Brian, the Harding Academic Resource Coordinator and a licensed grief counselor, facilitates the group discussion. She said the biggest advantage of a group counseling session is that it lets the attendees know they are not alone.
“When you lose someone, you feel so completely alone,” O’Brian said. “Even though everyone around you can try to relate, the truth of the matter is that they can’t. There are times you want to talk about it but no one asks, and there are other times when you absolutely cannot talk about it and people ask.”
O’Brian said she understands how difficult it is to attend a group counseling session.
“I definitely acknowledge that it takes a lot of courage,” O’Brian said. “It’s something that is vulnerable because you know that there’s a good chance that you’re going to cry. You know you’re going to go there and you’re going to hear people’s broken hearts crying out, and that’s hard. But it’s a place where, for the first time in a long time, you can actually be honest. It’s a good thing to simply try.”
Freshman Annalise Massey, who lost her sister Kailey Massey, a former Harding student, last winter, said she was apprehensive when she heard about the group via a chapel announcement, but she decided to attend.
“Getting to know other people who feel the same things is comforting,” Massey said. “It’s nice talking to them about random feelings or things you’ve noticed, because you can’t talk about it with other people.”
Massey also said she enjoyed the conversational atmosphere of the group, and she plans to attend for the rest of the semester.
“Don’t be afraid to go,” Massey said. “One-on-one counseling is not for everyone. When people hear about group counseling they still say ‘no I don’t like counseling,’ but it’s way different. It’s just like you’re sitting with people and talking, not being grilled by the counselor.”
Meetings take place at 802 E. Market St.
