Are you overwhelmed by feelings of grief?
Has someone you love died, leaving you feeling utterly alone? Does it seem as if you’re walking through a fog? Perhaps you’re gutted to the core because grief has taken your breath away. You might be scared that this sadness will never end.
When you tell your friends and family how empty you feel, you may get reactions of impatience, as if your grief should have a shelf life. Grief can hit you in all kinds of ways and at unexpected times. In my experience, the hardest part can be when texts, emails, and voicemail messages start to dwindle. When the last baking dish has been returned and everyday life resumes, the shock wears off, and the reality of the loss sets in.
Grief and the multiple and conflicting feelings it brings up is exhausting. But what if it could be a bit less overpowering? What if you could get help that would make you less isolated while you’re coping with loss?
Grief is about loss, a universal experience.
Grief is a natural response to loss—the loss of a relationship, a home, or a way of life. Grief can result after being laid off from working at a job that you loved and that defined who you are in the world.
Aging presents its own demands for coping with grief and loss. An able body, independent living, a partner, or a community you were a part of for decades, are no longer a part of your day-to-day. No matter how much we think we’ve prepared ourselves for such changes, they can knock us sideways.
Grief doesn’t always involve losing something unconditionally loved. You could be grieving the end of a difficult friendship. If you struggle with substance use, commemoration of a clean and sober birthday may prompt feelings of grief. Letting go, even of what’s no longer serving you, can be terrifying if what’s lost has been integral to how you see yourself, how others see you, and how you’ve been connected to the world.
Coping with death isn’t a straight road, and it’s different for everyone. The emotions surfacing may surprise you and seem at odds with each other. Therapy for grief offers the chance to be a little less alone as you negotiate the intense mix of feelings that come with bereavement.
Therapy is a safe place for coping with grief and loss.
Grief is a response to the loss of something that has been a part of you. That loss needs to be discussed, identified, and examined in setting where there’s no expectation, judgement, or agenda.
My approach to therapy for grief is rooted in life experience and my training, which involves a combination of going deep and finding practical solutions. This means that I’ll want to get to know you really well and hear as much about yourself as you’re ready to tell me. In addressing your bereavement in the present, you and I will explore recent and past life events to help you in coping with grief.
I’ll listen carefully to how you talk about loss, and I’ll ask questions. We’ll examine closely what talking is bringing up for you. You and I will address your grief so that you’ll be able make sense of your suffering.
If it’s your first time coming to therapy, you might wonder whether getting help for coping with loss is a sign of weakness. You may think that you’re supposed to go it alone, push harder, move past it. But asking for help is a sign of strength, and contemplating grief and loss therapy takes courage. Grief is intensely personal and primal, and one loss often brings up others, something that therapy addresses. Working through it takes time, but naming the pain eases its hold on you.
Sometimes those who come for grief and loss therapy express a fear of depending too much on a therapist. My observation is that increased independence is a common result of psychotherapy. When you get help for coping with death from a therapist you feel connected to, you learn to carry therapy with you after session, throughout treatment, and long after treatment is over.
Therapy for grief is an intimate relationship and like any close relationship, trust is crucial in order to feel safe. That safety is encouraged and supported by specific boundaries that can be puzzling because they don’t exist with other close connections. It might seem counterintuitive, but those boundaries are actually what help make therapy a secure and healing place. The relationship that you and I will form is hugely important in treatment—in and of itself, it’s an agent of change.
Maybe you still have questions about therapy for grief…
Therapy is an additional expense.
Yes, it is. I make every effort to keep my fees reasonable and reserve spots for sliding-scale patients, though those spots are often full. If your tooth were hurting or your back out, you’d consult a healthcare professional. So it is with the care of your mind and emotional life.
I’m not sure that therapy for grief will work.
It’s true that there are no guarantees in life. But psychotherapy is sound health care, and as with other healthcare, the investment can pay off now and in the future. Psychotherapy can help you bear the burden of grief, allowing you to gain insight and make sense of what you’re going through. Therapy for grief helps you be less burdened and less solitary in your pain.
Talking about grief will make it worse.
Sometimes in therapy, things do get temporarily worse before they get better. But psychotherapy offers safety and support for coping with loss. Giving words to your distress will allow it to becomes less strange and isolating, and you’ll start to regain a sense of yourself.
I’ll become dependent on a therapist.
Therapy is an intimate relationship, and like any good relationship, trust is essential in order to feel secure. That secure attachment is supported by specific boundaries that can be puzzling because they don’t exist in other intimate relationships, but they’re actually what help make therapy a safe and healing place. The relationship you and I will form is hugely important—in and of itself, it’s an agent of change. The ultimate aim is increased independence.
Therapy offers help for coping with grief.
If you’re struggling, call me at 213-807-6021 to schedule a free, 20-minute consultation. Let’s talk about how I can help.
