Support for Cancer, Illness, and Grief

Healing is not just physical - it's emotional, relational, and deeply human.

Counseling for Cancer & Caregiver Support

Cancer doesn’t just affect one person. It changes the heartbeat of a relationship. What you thought life would look like gets turned upside down, and suddenly you’re not just fighting cancer - you’re fighting to hold onto each other.

 

If you’re here, you might be living in that tension. You love each other deeply, but it feels like you’ve lost your team. You put on a brave face for the world, but nobody really understands, not even each other sometimes. The questions, the pitying looks, the advice from people who don’t get it...it can make the isolation feel even heavier.

 

 

You Are More Than Cancer. Your Relationship Is, Too.

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You are not your illness, and you are not just a caregiver. You are partners, lovers, best friends, parents, whole human beings who deserve more than just survival. You deserve connection, joy, and the ability to see each other beyond the diagnosis.

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Therapy That Honors the Complexity of Your Journey

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Heart Space's very own Eli Schaugh, MFTC, specializes in working with cancer patients and the partners that support them. In Eli's work with clients navigating cancer, he helps couples focus on:

• Reclaiming your connection: Moving from fighting cancer and each other to fighting for each other.

• Holding space for grief: Grieving what’s been lost and what may never come, while still learning to live fully now.

• Finding a new purpose together: Creating a future that might look different than you dreamed but can still hold meaning, love, and joy.

• Being truly understood: No platitudes. No comparisons. Just a safe place where you can be raw, honest, and heard.

• Embracing the whole human experience: Because you are so much more than this illness, and your relationship is too.

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Support for Each of You as Individuals

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While cancer impacts you as a couple, it also impacts you as individuals in deeply personal ways. Therapy can hold space for both experiences:

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For the Patient:

Your body and life have been thrown into uncertainty. You may feel fear, guilt, grief, or exhaustion that you don’t want to burden anyone else with. Together, we create a space where you can feel fully human again—where you are seen beyond your diagnosis, where you can express what’s really going on inside, and where you can reclaim a sense of purpose and self.

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For the Caregiver:

You’ve stepped into a role you never wanted but are determined to do well. You love fiercely, but sometimes it feels like you’ve disappeared into the responsibilities. Therapy offers you a space to be honest about your anger, sadness, and fear - without judgment - and to remember that you are more than a caregiver. You deserve support, too.

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For the Couple Who Won’t Give Up

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If you’re tired of feeling alone in this, of holding everything in to protect each other, of missing the “normal” things that used to feel small but now feel huge… you’re not alone here. This is a place where you can both lay down the weight, be seen, and remember that you are still a team.

Counseling for Chronic Illness

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Chronic illness doesn’t just impact your health. It impacts every corner of your life. The unpredictability, the loss of energy, the endless doctor visits and the emotional weight you carry often go unseen by others. Even the people closest to you might not fully understand how isolating and exhausting it is to live in a body that feels like it’s turned against you. And when you’re in a relationship, it can feel like your partner either becomes your nurse or fades into the background. The life you had imagined might now feel like it’s on hold, or worse, slipping away.

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But you are more than your illness.

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Your relationship is more than what it’s been reduced to. Your dreams, your love, your laughter, your connection - they don’t have to be casualties of chronic illness.

 

Therapists That Understand What Chronic Illness Really Means

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This isn’t about quick fixes or toxic positivity. Our work is rooted in compassion, honesty, and hope that makes room for your reality. In therapy, we can help you:

• Navigate the emotional toll: grief, guilt, shame, fear, and loneliness are real. You don’t have to carry them alone.

• Strengthen your relationship: shift from survival mode to connection again, even with new limitations.

• Restore your identity: illness may shape your life, but it doesn’t define who you are.

• Balance roles in partnership: untangle the dynamic where one partner is ‘sick’ and the other is ‘support’ and return to being equals.

• Feel seen and validated: no minimizing, no "have you tried yoga"-style advice—just a space to be heard.

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We work with both individuals and couples facing chronic illness and offer a trauma-informed, emotionally attuned approach. Every person’s journey is different, but nobody should feel alone in theirs.

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The Neurology of Chronic Illness and Emotional Distress

Research shows that chronic illness can impact the brain’s stress regulation systems, increase inflammation, and lead to symptoms of anxiety, depression, and even trauma. Living in a chronically dysregulated body affects your nervous system; it’s not just "in your head." Our therapy approach considers how the mind, body, and relationships all intersect.

We use holistic, evidence-based practices that integrate talk therapy with nervous system-informed interventions, because we know that true healing requires both understanding and embodied support.

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Relationship Struggles from Illness: You're Not Broken, You're Overloaded.

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It’s common for couples to fight more during illness, not because they don’t care, but because they’re overwhelmed, terrified, and don’t know how to talk about what’s really going on. Our couples therapy sessions can help you:

• Rebuild emotional intimacy even when physical intimacy feels distant

• Communicate in ways that soothe, not trigger

• Feel like teammates again, instead of strangers

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Support for Individuals Living with Chronic Illness

You may be grieving your former self, struggling to keep up with life, or trying to stay strong for everyone else. Therapy is a place where you don’t have to perform or pretend - just be.

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Support for Partners and Loved Ones

Caring for someone you love through illness is emotionally draining. You might feel guilt for resenting the situation, or like there’s no space for your needs. Therapy is your space, too.

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Common Questions About Therapy for Chronic Illness

Do I need to be diagnosed to start therapy?

No. Whether you have a formal diagnosis or are still searching for answers, therapy can support you through the emotional and relational impact of health challenges.

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Can couples therapy really help if we’re just surviving day-to-day?

Yes. In fact, that’s when it’s often most helpful. We create space for both of you to feel heard, supported, and reconnected, even in the midst of daily chaos.

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What if I don’t want to burden my therapist with the full truth of how hard this is?

You won’t. That’s exactly what therapy is for. We’re trained to hold complex pain and to help you make sense of what feels overwhelming.

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Can therapy help if my illness is “invisible” and people don’t believe me?

Absolutely. We understand the emotional trauma of being dismissed, disbelieved, or minimized. Your story is safe and valid here.

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Therapy Can Be a Place to Breathe Again.

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We understand the complexity of chronic illness - how it wears down your spirit, your relationships, and your sense of identity. But we also believe in the resilience of the human heart.

 

This isn’t about curing. It’s about healing.​ It’s about reclaiming your voice, your connection, and your right to live a full life, even in the midst of hard things.

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Ready to explore support for your chronic illness journey? Reach out for a free consultation. You don’t have to walk this road alone.

Grief Counseling

 

Grief Doesn’t Just Hurt. It Unravels Everything.

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Grief isn’t just about sadness. It’s about disorientation. About suddenly waking up in a world that no longer makes sense. It’s the hollow quiet after someone is gone. The punch-in-the-gut realization that life will never be the same. It’s the kind of pain that isn’t always visible—but is always present.

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Whether you’ve lost a partner, a parent, a friend, a pregnancy, a dream, or even a part of yourself... grief can be lonely. And exhausting. And complicated.

 

We get it. And we’re here to hold space for all of it.

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You’re Not “Too Sensitive.” You’re Grieving.

You might be asking yourself:

• “Why am I still not okay?”

• “Shouldn’t I be over this by now?”

• “Why does everyone else seem to be moving on?”

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Grief isn’t linear, and it certainly doesn’t follow rules. You’re not broken. You’re not weak. You’re just a human being trying to make sense of a world that has been forever altered.

At Heart Space Counseling, our grief therapy is built around compassion, presence, and helping you reconnect with meaning, even in the middle of deep pain.

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Therapy That Makes Room for the Real Experience of Loss

Our grief counseling in Lakewood, CO (and virtually across Colorado) provides gentle, holistic support to help you:

• Make sense of your grief - whether it’s fresh, delayed, sudden, expected, or complicated

• Work through the anger, guilt, numbness, or regret that often comes with loss

• Move through grief without feeling rushed, shamed, or pathologized

• Reconnect with a sense of identity and purpose after the loss

• Learn how to be with joy and pain at the same time

• Talk about what others are afraid to say out loud

 

We believe grief is not something to fix; it’s something to honor. It’s sacred. And you don’t have to go through it alone.

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Grief Doesn’t Just Come From Death

Yes, we support clients navigating bereavement and mourning, but grief counseling can also help with:

• Divorce or relationship breakups

• Infertility or pregnancy loss

• Estrangement from family

• Major life transitions (like leaving a career, moving states, or changing identity)

• Loss of physical health, independence, or future plans

• Cumulative or unacknowledged grief from past events that were never fully processed

If your heart is hurting and you’re not sure if it “counts” as grief, come anyway. We’ll figure it out together.

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Support That Meets You Where You Are

There’s no right way to grieve. You might need to cry, talk, rage, collapse, write, sit in silence, or do all of those in the same hour.

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Our therapists offer space for your full self, not just the parts that are “doing okay.” We use a blend of trauma-informed therapy, parts work (IFS), attachment-based models, somatic awareness, and emotion-focused approaches to walk with you at your own pace.

 

You don’t have to make it pretty. You don’t have to make it linear. You just have to show up as you are.

 

Common Questions About Grief Therapy

How long should I go to grief counseling?
There’s no set timeline. Some people come weekly for months, others drop in for support during key anniversaries or transitions. Your process sets the pace.

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What if I’m grieving someone who hurt me?
We hold space for complex grief. Many people are grieving someone who wasn’t safe, kind, or healthy, and that doesn’t make the pain any less real. In fact, it often makes it more confusing. Therapy helps you navigate that nuance.

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Can couples or families do grief counseling together?
Yes. Loss affects entire systems, and we often support partners, siblings, or families as they learn how to hold grief together instead of in isolation.

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Do I have to talk about the loss every session?
Not unless you want to. Some sessions may focus on practical coping tools, others on exploring meaning, and some on simply having a place where you can feel like yourself again.

 

You’re Not Too Much. Your Grief Is Not a Problem to Solve.

 

If you’ve been hiding your pain, minimizing your loss, or feeling like your emotions are taking up too much space, this is your sign to exhale. You are allowed to grieve. And you deserve support that feels safe, real, and deeply human.

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Grief may have changed your world, but it doesn’t get to take away your worth. You are still here. Still whole. Still allowed to heal.

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Reach out today to schedule a free consultation and let us walk with you - one breath, one step, one heartbeat at a time.