think your therapist is feeding you a line of some theoretical book somewhere along the line without a sense of experience. My therapist and I talked extensively about normal grief following my sister’s death. He spoke of the loss of his cousin, some 40 years ago, that still hits him at times quite unexpectedly. He told me to simply honor the grief and the memories and not pathologize that grief. His acceptance and normalizing of my grief was one of the most healing experiences in all of my years of therapy.--

This is very possible. The only person close to her that she has lost is her grandfather. From what she has said I suspect she has dealt with it the same way I did with my grandmother which is totally different than my mom.

One thirg I really admire about Emdr T is her willingness to admit when she is wrong or when she only has book knowledge not actual experience. When we were discussing parenting one time (in regard to my 17 year old). I challenged what she said. She acknowledged that her child is only 3 so while she knows what the books say she doesn't have a lot of first hand experience. Even in her limited experience she knows that going by the book is ineffective in many ways.