Therapy Services · South Carolina
Specialized, private-pay therapy with Jeff Marcino, Psy.D, LPC — in person in Mount Pleasant and by secure telehealth across South Carolina.
Long Point Counseling provides grief and loss counseling in Mount Pleasant for adults throughout the Charleston area, with secure telehealth across South Carolina. Jeff Marcino, Psy.D., LPC offers private, one-to-one care for bereavement, divorce, betrayal, traumatic loss, and major life changes, tailored to both the person and the loss.
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Grief counseling in Mount Pleasant: when support can help
Grief is not only what follows a death. It can follow bereavement, divorce, betrayal, a serious health change, infertility, a traumatic event, estrangement, or the loss of a future you expected. Grief is the internal response to loss; mourning is how that loss gets expressed. Some people cry openly. Others go numb, stay busy, get irritable, or feel it mostly in their body.
Common grief responses include sadness, numbness, anger, guilt, anxiety, sleep disruption, trouble concentrating, and feeling disconnected from other people. You may look functional on the outside and still feel disoriented inside. You may also move back and forth between intense emotion and stretches of relative normalcy. That does not mean you are grieving incorrectly.
There is no single timeline and no “right way” to grieve. In my experience, people often seek therapy not because their grief is wrong, but because it has become isolating, overwhelming, or hard to carry alone. Grief counseling can help you make room for what happened, understand your responses, and find steadier footing without forcing you into a formula.
This page is educational and is not a substitute for therapy, diagnosis, or emergency care.
A trauma-informed, relational approach to grief and loss
I’m Jeff Marcino, Psy.D., LPC. Across 20 years in private practice and related clinical settings, I’ve worked with adults facing bereavement and many other forms of loss. I don’t reduce grief to platitudes, pressure people to “move on,” or assume everyone’s path should look the same.
My approach is especially helpful when grief overlaps with trauma, betrayal, addiction, shame, or strain in a marriage or family relationship. Loss rarely arrives cleanly. It often activates older wounds, changes how safe the world feels, and creates tension between people who may already grieve very differently.
That is why I use a trauma-informed, individualized psychotherapy approach rather than forcing anyone into a rigid “stages of grief” framework. If numbness shows up, I do not automatically treat it as resistance; sometimes it is the nervous system’s way of helping you function. When grief is affecting a couple or close family relationships, I may draw on Relational Life Therapy principles to help people communicate more honestly, understand different coping styles, and stay connected through pain. When shame or self-blame is heavy, concepts from The Daring Way™ can support vulnerability, emotional honesty, and self-compassion.
What grief and loss counseling may focus on
Grief therapy is not about saying the “right” thing. It is about creating enough safety and structure that you can face what feels unbearable in manageable pieces. Depending on your situation, sessions may focus on:
- Making space for the story of the loss at a pace you can tolerate, especially if the loss was sudden, shocking, or never fully witnessed by others.
- Exploring triggers and patterns such as anniversaries, holidays, certain places, dreams, avoidance, self-blame, or changes in work, sleep, appetite, and concentration.
- Building practical coping tools for waves of emotion, relationship stress, parenting or work demands, and the daily responsibilities that continue while you are hurting.
- Supporting meaning-making and continuing bonds so the goal is not forced “closure,” but a more livable relationship to what has been lost.
- Working on boundaries and communication with loved ones when grief creates conflict, misunderstanding, withdrawal, or different grieving styles.
Sometimes the work is simply to slow things down enough that you can feel what you feel without getting flooded by it. Sometimes it is more active and practical. Often it is both.
If you are in immediate danger or having thoughts of self-harm, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). Call 911 in an emergency.
Complicated grief, traumatic loss, and losses that others may not understand
People sometimes use the term complicated grief when mourning stays intensely painful or feels frozen around trauma, unanswered questions, avoidance, or a loss that does not have a clear ending. Labels matter less than understanding what is keeping the grief activated. These experiences often need more than generic advice.
Traumatic grief
After a sudden death, accident, violence, overdose, suicide death, or the discovery of painful information, grief can get fused with trauma. The mind may replay images, scan for danger, or stay stuck on unanswered questions. In these cases, it helps to work with both the bereavement and the traumatic imprint together. That is where my background in trauma therapy matters.
Ambiguous and disenfranchised grief
Some losses have no clear ending and little social permission to mourn them. Divorce grief, betrayal, infertility, estrangement, the loss of a hoped-for future, and narcissistic-abuse recovery can all leave people devastated while others minimize what happened. You may feel grief, anger, confusion, and even relief at the same time. Mixed feelings are common.
When a partner’s deception or infidelity is part of the picture, grief often overlaps with shock, shattered trust, and questions about identity and reality. My work in betrayal trauma counseling can be woven into the grief work rather than treated as a separate issue.
Grief may also coexist with anxiety, depression, trauma reactions, or changes in drinking or other substance use. I won’t diagnose you from a website, but I can say this clearly: those patterns are common under strain, and therapy can address the grief and the surrounding wounds as one connected experience.
In-person grief counseling near Charleston and telehealth across South Carolina
If you are looking for grief counseling near Charleston, SC, I offer in-person sessions in Mount Pleasant for adults throughout the greater Charleston area, as well as secure telehealth anywhere in South Carolina.
In-person care may be a good fit if you want a dedicated private space, feel more grounded face to face, or benefit from leaving home and stepping into a setting meant for the work. Telehealth may fit better if grief has made driving or scheduling harder, you live outside the immediate Charleston area, or you value the convenience and consistency of meeting from home or another private location.
Either format is designed to be private, steady, and clinically focused. The goal is to make good therapy accessible without sacrificing thoughtfulness or confidentiality.
Fees, fit, and how to get started
Long Point Counseling is a private-pay practice. My fees are shared directly when you reach out, so the financial side is clear before we begin.
I do not bill insurance directly. If you plan to use out-of-network benefits, you may want to check with your insurer about whether any reimbursement is available for private-pay psychotherapy.
New clients begin with a brief, confidential request that I personally review. If grief support is only part of what you need, you can also explore all therapy services to get a fuller sense of my work.
If this page sounds like what you have been looking for, you are welcome to request an appointment. You do not need to have the perfect words. Just share a little about what is happening, and I will review it personally.
How do I know if grief counseling could help, or if what I’m feeling is a normal part of grief?
A wide range of grief responses can be normal, including sadness, numbness, anger, guilt, anxiety, and trouble sleeping or concentrating. Counseling can be especially helpful if grief feels isolating, overwhelming, traumatic, or “stuck,” or if it is affecting work, relationships, or daily functioning. You do not need to prove that your grief is severe enough. If carrying it alone is not working, that is reason enough to ask for help.
Can grief counseling help after divorce, betrayal, or another loss that is not a death?
Yes. Grief is not limited to death. People often seek grief therapy after divorce, betrayal, infertility, estrangement, narcissistic abuse, or the loss of a hoped-for future. These losses can be deeply painful and sometimes harder to mourn because other people do not recognize them. I work with non-death losses regularly, including when grief overlaps with trauma, betrayal trauma, or relationship strain.
What happens in the first appointment for grief and loss counseling?
The first appointment is a chance for me to understand you, the loss, and what has been hardest lately. We may talk about the story of what happened, current stressors, how grief is affecting daily life and relationships, and what you hope will change. There is no pressure to share everything at once. We will start where you are and move at a pace that feels tolerable.
Do you offer in-person grief counseling near Charleston and online therapy across South Carolina?
Yes. I offer in-person grief counseling in Mount Pleasant for adults throughout the Charleston area, and secure telehealth anywhere in South Carolina. Some clients prefer the privacy and grounding of an office; others prefer the convenience of online sessions. Both options are consistent, confidential, and clinically focused.
What are your fees, and do you take insurance?
Long Point Counseling is a private-pay practice. Working outside of insurance keeps your care confidential and shaped entirely around your goals, never capped by session limits or diagnosis codes. I’m glad to talk through current fees directly, so the financial side is clear from the start. I do not bill insurance directly. If you have out-of-network benefits, you can check with your insurance company to see whether any reimbursement may be available for private-pay therapy.
How do I get started with Jeff at Long Point Counseling?
To get started, submit a brief confidential request through /book/. I review each request personally and respond myself. You do not need a polished explanation or a complete history; a few honest sentences are enough. If grief support is only one part of what you need, you can also review my other services before reaching out.
Ready to talk to someone who specializes in this?
Jeff personally reviews every confidential request and reaches out about fit and next steps.
Ready to Begin?
New clients start with a brief, confidential request that Jeff personally reviews — in person in Mount Pleasant or online across South Carolina.
Request an AppointmentOr call 843-330-2336
