While it may be true that you overfocus on the leaving part of the equation, and that may be something to address psychologically, to jump from that to a literal afterlife is a leap of faith, not of therapy.
Your T is young and inexperienced and I would hope that her supervision is addressing this sort of boundary crossing.
Have you looked at any of the newer bereavement research? The widely accepted Kubler-Ross 5 stages approach provided a neat and tidy package, easily disseminated. But newer research shows grief is far more individual and far less linear than such a model suggests. Also, KR's study population was people dying, not others responding to death. So a lot of inconsistency and fuzzy applications have derived from and been ascribed to her work.
Newer research which has studied what those grieving actually experience, has found that more often people consciously keep ties with the dead. Not in a denial of death sort of way, but a conscious choosing to remember those lost as they lived: a maintained, internal, heart and mind and memory emotional "living" link. This isn't about faith, but about psychology. It doesn't prevent feelings of loss because the the lack of a tangible presence is always felt; but it does sustain an internal connection, and that can have many positive benefits. This is the choice my T, who has never been a strongly religious person, has made, and witnessing it, it seems very functional to me. A lot of strength and comfort, as well as a very deeply meaningful perception seems to come from this. I feel like I'm learning a lot that I hope I can embrace for myself after his death.
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