Grief and Loss Therapy
The grief that often accompanies losing a loved one, the end of a relationship, a change in health status, a big move, a change in work, or other significant life event can easily become overwhelming. And the finality of death can bring up big questions about the point of life or why things happen the way they do. When you need help with grief, therapy can be a place to process your suffering and engage with your questions.
Our culture encourages us to be strong, pick ourselves up, and move on. But grief is a meaningful and important experience. As a grief therapist, I hold space for all your emotions, thoughts, and other expressions of grief. Sadness is common, but anger, guilt, regret, disbelief, and even joy or relief are also often part of the grieving process. Other grief symptoms include numbness, feeling “crazy,” exhaustion, impaired sleep, changes in eating, and even physical pain.
“Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be. ”
Many experiences in our lives, perhaps more than you have considered, can cause feelings of loss and grief. Ecological grief happens as we watch the erosion and damage to our natural world. When we have a loss that is not socially acceptable to share, we may experience disenfranchised grief. A temporary or permanent change in health can cause chronic or ambiguous grief. And collective grief happens when a community has been harmed through police violence, erasure of identity, and other ongoing oppression.
I provide space for you to explore how to integrate such losses into your understanding of yourself and figure out how to move forward with life when you’re ready. Coping with loss can sometimes affect your sense of self, shaking what you thought was a solid foundation. Sometimes the grieving process leads to a shift in identity, but it is also possible to expand your sense of self in a way that creates space for the grief you are experiencing.
Your reality may change after a big loss, but in grief work we can find ways for you to adapt and even embrace what comes next and who you are now. I’ll also help you reclaim your agency as you go through a process you didn’t choose.
I am also a disability justice therapist. Disabilities or chronic illness often create a deep sense of loss and grief. I am sensitive to the nuances of living with medical conditions and the type of ambiguous loss that can be hard to understand and process.
There are many types of grief, including:
Ambiguous grief
Disenfranchised grief
Anticipatory grief
Complicated grief
Chronic grief
Delayed grief
Traumatic grief
Collective grief
Secondary losses