Pascale Vermont, PhD
Grief Counselor
Pascale Vermont is a licensed clinical psychologist based in San Francisco, CA. Pascale's main professional activity is as a grief counselor to bereaved parents after a pregnancy or infancy loss.
was tangible:
an amputation, a dismemberment,
the gap so great, no sobs,
children, friends
would fill its space:
a broken heart is body's pain indeed.
Days pass, and nights, flowing into weeks;
milk no longer spills
with my tears.
Hours once spent weeping
now weave into patterns,
our words of grief and love
now reach for friendship's clasp,
now look ahead...
-Lois Lake Church
'We did not want to have his loss define
us as broken people for the rest of our lives.' - S
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French translation: Survivre à l'Inimaginable: Comment Affronter le Deuil Périnatal.
Available on
Amazon.frand
fnac.com
Spanish translation: Sobreviviendo a lo Inimaginable: Historias de Cómo Afrontar la Pérdida del Embarazo & de Infantes.
Buy Spanish version on Amazon
Pascale offers bereavement counseling to parents who lose a child during pregnancy, at birth or in early infancy. At a time of great pain and loneliness, she provides emotional support in the home, as well as education about the grief process and how to handle the many consequences of the loss, such as:
- How to guide family and friends to support the couple.
- How to cope with different grieving styles.
- How to manage the anxiety of a pregnancy after a loss.
- How to memorialize the baby.
Listen to a recent interview with Pascale about her work with pregnancy and infancy loss.
- Anonymous client
- Anonymous client
What Pascale provided in her grief counseling practice to bereaved adults: A safe place to express the multitude of feelings experienced by the bereaved - sadness, doubts, guilt, anger, moodiness...
Over time small victories build upon each other until they tend to dominate, and the moments of respite between the waves of pain lengthen. Pascale meets clients in her home office in San Francisco and has worked over Skype with people as far away as India, Pakistan and South Sudan.
Read a summary of highlights from an interview with Pascale by the Half Hour Intern podcast.
- Following the end of an intimate relationship
For 11 years Pascale offered crisis counseling to expatriate staff of Relief International based in 16 countries over Skype when they experienced a traumatic experience while in the field or suffer a personal crisis. She served as a psychologist to West African refugees on Samos Island, Greece, who had fled their home countries because of extreme violence and threats of death. She also trained local staff in Bangladesh who work with Rohingya refugees in Stress Management, Resilience and Self-Care, and met with them individually for counseling. She provided similar training and counseling to local staff in Juba and Maban, South Sudan, and in Nairobi Kenya. In addition, she was deployed to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake to provide grief counseling to civilians and hospital staff who had lost many family members and friends.
Read more about Pascale's grief counseling work for the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
- Steven Levine
For 10 years Pascale served as a disaster mental health volunteer and lead of the San Francisco mental health team for the American Red Cross. She provided crisis and grief counseling to survivors of tornadoes, hurricanes and floods in Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas and to the victims and families of the Asiana Airlines plane crash at San Francisco International Airport.
Read about Pascale's experience helping a young boy during the aftermath of a tornado in Arkansas.
- K
Some highlights of Pascale's work in Palliative Care:
Volunteer with No One Dies Alone program at Laguna Honda Rehabilitation Center, San Francisco. Led bereavement groups and sat with actively dying patients.
Palliative care counselor at Kaiser Permanente Hospitals in Vallejo and San Francisco.
Volunteer and instructor for San Francisco Crisis Care working in partnership with law enforcement officials and providing emotional support and practical assistance to families after a sudden death.
- A daughter following the death of her father"
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