Support through a loss, and for grief that has become stuck.
Grief is a natural response to losing someone or something that mattered. For most people it is painful but gradually softens over time, even if it never fully goes away. This is sometimes called uncomplicated grief, and therapy can help you through it, particularly when the loss was sudden or arrived on top of other stress.
For some people grief does not soften. Months or years later the loss feels as sharp as it did at the start, and life stays organized around it. This is known as complicated grief: a severe, long-lasting form of mourning in which a person feels stuck. It responds well to focused treatment.
Grief has no correct timeline. You do not need to be struggling in a particular way, or for a particular length of time, to benefit from support.
Treatment starts with understanding the loss and what it has changed in your life.
For uncomplicated grief, therapy offers a steady place to process the loss, adjust to what is different, and look after yourself while you do.
For complicated grief, the work is more targeted. We identify what is keeping the grief stuck, such as avoiding reminders, unresolved guilt, or thoughts about the loss that hold it at full intensity, and work through them gradually.
Approaches include cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and solution-focused work, chosen around what you need. Grief often sits alongside anxiety, and where it does, both are treated together.
Consider reaching out if grief is making it hard to work, sleep or look after yourself, if it feels as intense now as it did at the start, or if you have begun avoiding people and places because of the loss. Reaching out early is also appropriate. Support during a recent loss can make it less isolating.
If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988, or go to your nearest emergency department. This practice does not provide emergency or crisis services.
Yes. Grief does not follow a fixed schedule. What matters is less how long it has been and more whether the grief is gradually becoming easier to carry. If it is not, that is worth looking at.
Yes. Divorce, estrangement, fertility struggles, loss of health, or a major life change can all bring grief. The approach is the same: understanding the loss and what it has changed.
No. The aim is not to forget or to move on from the person. It is to reach a point where the loss can be carried alongside the rest of your life rather than in place of it.
Yes. Sessions are available online anywhere in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, or in person at the Newton office.
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