There's no correct timeline and no orderly sequence of stages. There is somewhere to put it.
Most of what people are told about grief is wrong in a way that makes it harder. The five stages were never meant as a sequence to move through in order — they came from work with dying patients, not the bereaved, and they've been flattened into a checklist that leaves people feeling like they're doing it incorrectly.
What grief actually tends to do is arrive in waves that gradually space out. Six months in can be worse than six weeks in. It shows up in the body, in sleep, in concentration, in a short fuse that doesn't feel like you. Feeling relief alongside sorrow does not mean you loved the person less.
An accident, an overdose, a suicide, a heart attack. No chance to prepare, and often trauma sitting alongside the grief rather than separate from it.
Grieving someone who is still here — a terminal diagnosis, dementia, a long decline. Exhausting in a way that gets little acknowledgment.
Estrangement, divorce, infertility, a diagnosis, a career, a community, a version of your future. Real losses that come without condolences.
When it stays acute long past the point it usually softens, and life keeps narrowing around it. It responds to treatment, and it isn't a personal failure.
Not a diagnostic checklist, only an evaluation can do that. But these are the things people describe most often when grief is what they're carrying.
We'll start wherever we need to. Grief takes a lot of shapes, and it needs room to move around. We'll work on feeling and processing the emotions, including the ones that are confusing, that don't make sense, or that feel too frightening to say out loud.
I'm not going to hand you a worksheet or a set of stages to get through. I'm also not going to push you toward feeling better before you want to. Some people come in and the last thing they want is to feel less sad, because the sadness is what's still connecting them to the person. That's allowed. We can sit there as long as it takes.
Sometimes grief and trauma are knotted together, especially when the loss was sudden or violent, and then the work changes shape. We'd slow down, build some steadiness first, and take the two apart before going further into either. People heal through connection, and after a loss is when that matters most.
In our first few sessions I'll ask questions so I can actually understand you, not just the loss that brought you in. We'll talk about why you reached out, what happened along the way in your life that contributed to how you got here, and other parts of your world so I can see the full picture.
We'll also talk about how therapy works with me, and I'll answer any questions you have. Then we'll start discussing goals. If you don't have clear goals yet, that's completely fine. We'll figure that out together.
There's no schedule, and the idea that there are five orderly stages is a persistent misreading of the original work. Grief tends to come in waves that gradually space out rather than a line that descends. If someone has told you you're taking too long, they're wrong.
No. People often come in about a loss from a decade ago, usually because something recent stirred it — an anniversary, a new loss, a life change that the person would have been part of.
It still counts. Divorce, estrangement, infertility, a diagnosis, losing a career or a community, the loss of a relationship with someone still living. Losses that don't get socially recognized as losses are often harder to carry, precisely because nobody offers condolences.
A general term for grief that stays acute and disabling well past the point where it usually starts to soften — persistent longing, difficulty accepting the loss, life narrowing around it. It's worth naming because it responds to treatment, and because people experiencing it often assume they're simply failing at grieving.
Yes. I have both personal and professional experience with this kind of loss. An overdose or a suicide can be among the most sudden, shocking things a person goes through. We'll work on getting in touch with what you're feeling, and at the same time build grounding skills so you can find some steadiness again.
No, I'll probably do a whole lot more listening than I will talking.
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