The Kintsugi Grief Center is a community of therapists dedicated to providing transformative support for individuals dealing with grief and loss.
Vanessa Fierstadt, who founded the center last year, lost her husband to cancer in 2012 when she was just 26.
As a young wife grappling with loss, she recognized the lack of appropriate spaces and resources for young grievers like herself.
Because of this, she underwent specialized training focusing on grief work, particularly for those whose grief experiences might be marginalized or overlooked and established Kintsugi Grief Center in Pasadena in 2022.
Just like the principle of Kintsugi, the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold, she believes brokenness can turn into something beautiful.
Fierstadt said the generation today does not talk about death and grief. “I think we’re very death phobic, and I think we’re very grief phobic.”
Instead of disguising or dismissing grief, she said it should be honored.
She added that having a space where people can take a breath and be with people who understand what they are going through and not feel like they have to shy away from experiencing their grief is important to those experiencing loss.
“Our love is forever a part of us, and we should be able to experience that, talk about it, not neglect that part of us and embrace it. So I always talk about having people carry it proudly. We’ve earned the right to express and talk about our love along the journey.”
The Kintsugi Grief Center offers a range of services to support individuals struggling with grief and everyday life.
There is a specific support group for those who loss a spouse, loss a child or loss someone by suicide so attendees will have the opportunity to connect with people in similar situations.
Kintsugi also offers telehealth grief support groups for anybody in the State of California and does grief education and workshops for the community.
“People are reaching out to us from organizations and schools and different facilities after they’ve had someone in their organization pass away and come in and do support for their employees and their staff,” said Fierstadt.
Speaking from her experience, Fierstadt said for those who are experiencing loss, being in a support group is very important.
“I think for a lot of people, a group can feel intimidating, but most of what I have found and my experience too after being in the grief group after my loss, is that it actually provided me with so much support that I didn’t even know existed.”
According to Fierstadt, most of Kintsugi’s support groups run biweekly for 12 weeks while online groups run for six weeks.
For more information about Kintsugi Grief Center visit: https://www.kintsugigrief.com/
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