Are grief and loss keeping you from living?
- Are you numb or disconnected from day-to-day life?
- Are you paralyzed by upcoming loss?
- Do you frequently express wishful thinking about someone or something no longer here?
- Are you mad at the universe for being unjust?
- Do you experience persistent melancholy and hopelessness?
- Have you lost all joy in memories of loved ones lost?
- Do you worry you'll be mourning forever?
Grief therapy is about helping you understand and come to terms with loss in a healthy, sustainable way.
In other words, does life feel harder than it “should” because you can’t let go of past or upcoming losses?
If you repeatedly cycle through a tangle of emotions like anger, sadness, doubt, fear, shock — or feel overwhelmed and stuck in any one of them — you may benefit from grief therapy.
Grief drives existential uncertainty and can make you think you’re alone.
Loss is a universal human experience. The longer you live, the more likely you are to experience this trauma. And it’s not just loved ones you stand to lose — it’s beliefs, ideals, hopes for the future, past versions of yourself and who you thought you’d be. This can understandably trigger existential anxieties.
Yet, while everyone experiences loss, no one experiences your exact loss. Grief can feel the most personal because your relationship with what you’ve lost is profoundly unique. Without healthy strategies to lean on as you mourn, it can feel like you alone are left behind to grieve.
In this way, grief is like a prison guard locking you up in solitary confinement. Letting yourself isolate, shut down, or lash out here may feel like an apt punishment, but this silo of negativity just gets darker and colder without intervention, reinforcing unhelpful thoughts and actions that keep you psychologically stuck.
The good news is: grief doesn’t have to keep you trapped in the past, or cut off from the present. An experienced therapist can help you commune with grief in ways that empower you to break free from unproductive mourning patterns and move forward on your own terms.
How do you know if your grief is “too much”?
Grief is hard to pin down for 3 reasons:
There are 6 stages of grief.
These stages aren’t linear or progressive. You can stall in one, regress to an earlier stage, or skip some altogether.
Loss is universal, but grief looks different in everyone. There’s no singular course for “getting through” a loss, and no singular “right” way to mourn.
Rather than grief being "too much," ask this instead:
- Are you tired of fighting to avoid, ignore, or deny your grief?
- What does closure mean to you?
- Are you ready for things to change?
Grief therapy can help you reinterpret loss and reconnect with what matters to you.
Sometimes, grief needs the stillness and focus that can only come from solitude. Other times, grief demands an audience.
Remember that healing happens in connection, even in the midst of great sorrow and suffering. In those moments, an experienced therapist can simultaneously bear witness to your grief AND help you disrupt mourning patterns that are no longer meaningful or productive.
What does grief therapy look like?
1. Initial Contact
Schedule a complimentary 10-minute phone consultation to get to know me briefly, without any pressure to commit further.
2. Become a client
To formally begin, you’ll complete informed consent documents and intake paperwork, sharing the origins of your grief and your hopes for therapy.
3. Attend your first session
During the intake appointment, you’ll show me what grief looks like for you. This gives me insight into how I can best customize and adapt your treatment in real-time, as your grief inevitably evolves.
4. Personalized grief therapy
As an eclectic, collaborative therapist, I use evidence-based approaches that focus on both short-term and long-term coping strategies for complicated grief. We’ll work together using skills and techniques adopted from:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Identify and dissect high-intensity grief triggers to restore agency over your reactions. Learn to reframe let go of guilt, blame, and anger, and view losses through a more forgiving lens.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR): Use self-care and somatic techniques to target where grief lives in your body. Learn to stop fighting grief physically and ground yourself in the present.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): Bring awareness to how your grief manifests in various stages. Learn new ways to self-soothe and disrupt unhelpful cycles of distress.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Clarify and prioritize your personal values to overcome negative self-talk and judgments. Learn to accept who you are and reconnect with who you’re meant to be in the aftermath of loss.
Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IP): Look at your grief as a social cue. Learn to let it guide you in building and maintaining safe, healthy connections at a time when you need emotional support most.
Closure and inner peace are in your future.
That you're here reflecting on your grief is proof you're on the way to healing. And you don't have to journey alone.
Your grief is a path we can traverse together. While I can't do the painful work of mourning with you, I CAN walk beside you as an interpreter and buffer for your grief.
I'm here to help you derive meaning, focus, and peace from your suffering, then move torward a "new normal" on your own terms.
New to grief therapy? Here are 3 questions I frequently hear:
1. You say the goal is to "move forward" from grief... isn't it to "move on"?
No. Grief therapy is NOT about no longer missing your loved ones or forgeting your losses.
I'll never press you to detach from what you've lost. In fact, grief therapy wants the opposite for you: to carry those memories forward into your day-to-day, and use that to fuel growth and healing.
2. What if I show up to session just feeling "numb"?
"Numb." "Blank." "Disconnected." "Detached." "Flat." "Nothing." These are all descriptors I've heard from grief therapy clients at some point.
Like it or not, this is normal. Grief can look like depressive apathy or dissociative shock, which are equally important to work through with compassionate guidance in session. Bottom line: it's always enough to show up just as you are!
3. How long does grief therapy take?
As a person-centered therapist, I view you as a whole person with unique needs. Since treatment is 100% personalized, there's no set timeline or limit that I can guarantee.
You can't force emotional growth or healing, especially with grief. Whether "simple" or "complex," grief has its own pace and agenda. The best results — and the least suffering — come when you work with your grief rather than against it.
With the right mindset, you can stop fighting your grief and start living with new purpose.
If you’re tired of living in the shadow of loss — like a shadow of yourself — grief therapy can shift your perspective and find fresh focus.
Let me know if you’re ready to work together to move away from pure suffering, towards a more resilient, meaning-filled version of yourself.
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