Therapy for Grief and Loss
You may have reached this page because you are grieving the loss of a loved one. You may be also grieving something else and you are not sure if it counts.
Perhaps it isn't a death. Perhaps it's a loved on who is still here but fading, a relationship that's ended, or a version of yourself you don't quite recognise any more.
Therapy for grief and loss can offer a place to make sense of loss in all its forms, not only bereavement after someone dies. This includes anticipatory grief while someone is still alive, the end of a relationship, the loss of health or ability, or the quieter grief of leaving behind who you used to be.
Grief doesn't need to look a certain way to be real, and it doesn't need a death certificate to deserve space.
If you’ve been affected by grief and loss in any form, you are in the right place.
I work with adults who are tired of carrying the weight of grief & loss on their own. Every single day. Often unseen.
What grief can look like in everyday life
On the outside, it may look as though you're managing. You're still showing up to work, still replying to messages, still the one other people lean on.
Privately, it can feel different:
A short fuse with people you love, over nothing much
Crying at odd moments, or not being able to cry at all
Exhaustion that sleep doesn't touch
Fear of burdening other people with your troubles or talking about a topic that people often tend to avoid
A nagging sense that you should be "over it" by now
Pulling away from people, because explaining feels like too much
Feeling the pressure to keep going as if nothing happened, but lacking the energy and motivation to do so
Wondering when you will “get back to normal” or what the future holds for you
Being consumed by feelings of injustice, or the opposite, thinking that maybe you deserved bad things to happen to you
Grief tends to get attached, in most people's minds, to death. But loss takes other shapes too, and they can hit just as hard.
Anticipatory grief is when you grieve someone while they're still alive, as an illness progresses or a decline sets in.
Pet bereavement is real, as pets are members of the family for many of us; grief may be related to a pet passing away, but it can also be about a pet living with a chronic illness, or a pet that has gone missing.
You may be mourning over a breakup, the loss of a home, a job or a role you’ve stepped out of.
You may be grieving an old version of yourself, the person you were before something upsetting or life-changing happened, or the loss of a future you’ve quietly been building toward but can no longer picture.
You may have been experiencing survivor’s guilt alongside grief - this can happen following an event where your life was in danger but you were able to survive while someone else wasn’t.
If you've been carrying any of these without calling it grief, that naming can be part of the work itself.
Losses that often go unnamed
Grief is a normal and unavoidable part of life. After all, it is the cost we pay for love.
But it can also be one of the hardest things that we, humans, experience. It deserves space, patience and attention - the safe, consistent, supportive relationship between a client and a therapist can offer just that.
How can therapy for grief and loss help?
Therapy can offer space to slow down and let whatever you're carrying be looked at properly, rather than managed from the edges of a busy life. It isn't about rushing you toward acceptance or ticking through stages in order.
In sessions, we may explore what the loss has disturbed, not only the person or thing you've lost, but what it meant, what it held in place, and what's shifted now it's gone. For grief that's ongoing, such as watching a loved one decline, we can also look at how to live alongside that uncertainty and cope with the increasing demands of care-giving.
You do not need to arrive with the "right" language for what you're feeling, or proof that your loss is significant enough to bring to therapy.
Healing from grief & loss doesn’t mean forgetting or not caring about what’s been lost. It means allowing yourself to have the space and support needed to understand how you are feeling, process what happened, become more compassionate toward yourself, and find ways to rebuild what’s been shattered.
Who can benefit from therapy for grief and loss?
People go through losses throughout their lives and time often helps them recover. However, there are many people who get stuck in repeating cycles of grief. While symptoms that resemble depression are common in the months after a loss, for some they may last a lot longer or become quite problematic.
Sometimes the circumstances surrounding a loss can make our feelings more complicated and harder to work through on our own. It may also be that a particular loss is so unexpected and life-changing that we are required to make significant adjustments to our lives, routines and identity. Or sometimes people have to deal with, not only the feelings of grief, but the aftermath of the loss and the impact it has had on other important relationships and aspects of life.
A therapeutic space to process grief and what it means for us can be useful for all. But it becomes particularly important for those who experience a lasting impact and struggle to find a way forward. Healing can come when you give yourself permission to feel whatever it is that you are feeling, without having to justify the size of the loss to yourself or anyone else.
What is traumatic grief and how it differs from “regular” grief?
Traumatic grief occurs when the pain of losing someone is intertwined with the shock or trauma surrounding how the death happened. While grief is a natural response to loss, traumatic circumstances -such as sudden, violent, or unexpected deaths- can make it harder for the mind and body to process what has happened. When someone has a complicated relationship with the deceased, the loss can also be experienced as traumatic or cause past traumas to resurface.
During this time, grief and trauma responses may occur together; you may experience the sadness and longing of grief alongside trauma symptoms such as intrusive images, nightmares, shock, emotional numbness, or intense distress when reminded of the death. Instead of being able to focus on memories of the person who died, thoughts may repeatedly return to the moment of death, the events that took place, or what could have been done differently. The mind may become stuck in these loops and the body may react as though the threat is still present.
Healing from traumatic grief may require more time and support than other types of grief. A specialist approach combining trauma therapy and grief therapy is often the best way forward and it would be a privilege to accompany you on this tough journey.
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