Joseph Dubowski, M.S., LMFT

I help people recover from the trauma of emotionally significant loss, including the loss of a child, spouse, parent, not to mention loss of trust stemming from infidelity and other betrayals. I am an Advanced Online Grief Recovery Method Specialist.  I am also a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in the state of Illinois, where I specialize in working with individuals and couples.My work in helping people with grief began after my daughter Gayle was killed in a mass shooting in 2008. I was totally unprepared for the pain of this loss, as well as all the turmoil surrounding a major news event and community impact. I became aware through all this that I had never addressed or resolved other losses in my life. My awareness of the cumulative weight of the grief I carried grew as a result. I was determined to find answers and relief, to learn how to move beyond the grief that my family felt at the same time.Fortunately, friends reached out to us and told us about the Grief Recovery Handbook. I went out the next day and purchased a copy, and my wife and I began reading and taking the actions taught therein, completing the loss of our daughter. We were then able to work through recovering from other losses in our lives, each one making a difference in the way we felt and the way we communicated with one another.This led me to go through training to become a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist, and I began working with groups and individuals on recovering from their losses. To further my understanding of how grief affects relationships, I returned to school and earned my master's degree with a specialization in marriage and family therapy. I have spoken to churches, community groups, and written articles on the topic of loss. I also wrote "Cartwheels in the Rain: Finding Faith in the Wake of the Unthinkable," (published in 2010) a book that tells about our daughter and the faith and recovery journey we traveled following our loss. I have been interviewed on over a dozen Christian radio programs, and appeared on WindyCityLive (ABC-Chicago) and was featured in an interview for Dateline NBC. I have also presented on helping clients with grief in a workshop at the Illinois Afilliation of Marriage and Family therapists. I help grieving people locally in groups and one-on-one, and online wherever they may live.