Shannon Pufahl, Grief Support Facilitator

Shannon Pufahl is a therapist-in-training with a special interest in grief, loss, and the ways people make meaning after a death. Her approach is warm, compassionate, and grounded in the belief that grief deserves space, patience, and care. She is especially interested in the profound bonds people form with animal companions and in creating supportive spaces where those relationships and losses can be fully acknowledged and honored.

Shannon is currently training in Expressive Arts Therapy at the California Institute of Integral Studies and has also trained and volunteered as a Buddhist chaplain in hospital and hospice settings, accompanying people and families through illness, dying, and bereavement. Before entering the counseling field, she earned a PhD in Literature and has taught at Stanford University since 2011. Across her work as a therapist-in-training, chaplain, writer, and educator, she has remained deeply interested in questions of attachment, loss, meaning, and how we continue to live with what and whom we have loved.