Specialty
Grief & Loss Therapy
When a loss is too heavy to carry alone
Grief is the natural response to losing someone who mattered, and there is no correct way to do it. But some losses land differently. A sudden death with no chance to say goodbye. A death by suicide, with its particular weight of shock and unanswerable questions. Losing a parent when you were young. A loss that, months or years later, still feels as raw and unreal as the day it happened. *
You may find yourself unable to accept that the person is gone, replaying their final days, avoiding anything that brings the loss to mind, or feeling stuck between a world that has moved on and a grief that has not. Some people feel numb when they expect to feel devastated, and guilty about that too. All of it belongs to grief. *
Grief itself does not need fixing. But when a loss is traumatic, or when grief stays frozen and life cannot restart around it, support helps. Therapy will not ask you to get over the person you lost. It helps you carry them differently, so that love remains and the pain loosens its grip on your days. *
Signs grief & loss may be affecting your life
- Disbelief that the person is really gone, even long after the loss
- Intrusive images or replaying of the death or final days
- Intense longing or searching for the person
- Avoiding places, dates, belongings, or conversations tied to the loss
- Guilt about what you did or did not do, or about surviving
- Anger at the person, at others, at yourself, or at the unfairness of it
- Numbness or feeling cut off from your own grief
- Difficulty engaging with your own life since the loss
- Feeling that moving forward would betray the person
- Grief that feels as fresh years later as it did at first
Our approach to grief & loss
Grief therapy starts by making room for the loss exactly as you carry it, the sorrow, the anger, the guilt, the numbness, without timelines or expectations. For many people, simply having a place where the full weight of the loss can be spoken is itself a relief. *
When a loss was sudden, violent, or traumatic, the shock of how the person died can stand in the way of grieving that they died. In those cases we gently process the traumatic imprint first, EMDR can help here, so that mourning itself becomes possible. Where grief has been frozen for years, we work with whatever has kept it stuck, often guilt, unfinished words, or the fear that healing means forgetting. *
The aim is not to close a chapter or leave the person behind. It is a continuing bond that lets you hold your love and your memories while your own life regains its color. *
Clinicians who specialize in grief & loss
EMDR · Hypnosis · Insight-Oriented Therapy
Dr. Citrin works with grief in its hardest forms, including sudden death, suicide loss, and losses that remain shocking or unresolved. She brings deep trauma expertise to grief work, helping clients process the traumatic edge of a loss so that mourning can move. *
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EMDR · Hypnosis · Psychodynamic
Dr. Zala supports clients through complicated and traumatic grief, with particular attention to how a loss reverberates through relationships, identity, and the roles we carried with the person who died. *
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EMDR · Hypnosis · Psychodynamic
Dr. Zylstra has particular experience with early parental loss and with grief rooted in family history, helping adults mourn losses from childhood that were never fully grieved at the time. *
Full profile →Modalities
Therapy approaches that may help
We integrate these techniques, custom-tailored to you, in the order your nervous system can use first.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is my grief normal, or is something wrong?
- Grief has an enormous normal range, waves of sorrow, anger, guilt, numbness, even moments of relief, and it does not follow tidy stages. Concern arises mainly when grief stays frozen: when months or years on, the loss still dominates daily life, feels utterly unreal, or keeps you from living. Therapy helps in either case, and you do not need to be in crisis to deserve support. *
- How long should grief last?
- There is no deadline, and love does not expire on schedule. Grief usually softens and changes shape over time rather than ending. If it is not softening at all, if the loss feels as raw years later as on day one, that is not failure, it is a sign the grief may be stuck in a way therapy can help release. *
- What makes grief after a sudden death or suicide different?
- Sudden and violent losses combine grief with shock and often trauma: intrusive images, disbelief, and endless questions about why and what if. Suicide loss can add layers of guilt, anger, and stigma that make it hard to talk about anywhere. Therapy addresses the traumatic and complicated layers so the underlying grief can be mourned. *
- I lost a parent as a child. Is it too late to grieve now?
- It is never too late. Children often cannot fully grieve at the time, the loss is too big and the support too thin, so the grief waits. Many adults find that mourning an early loss decades later is some of the most freeing work they ever do. *
- Will therapy make me forget the person or leave them behind?
- No. Good grief therapy does the opposite: it helps you keep a living connection to the person, the memories, the love, what they meant to you, while the pain gradually loosens its hold on your daily life. Healing is not forgetting. It is carrying them differently. *
- Do I need grief therapy, or is time enough?
- For many losses, time and support from people around you are enough. Therapy earns its place when the loss was traumatic, when grief stays frozen or overwhelming, when guilt or unfinished business will not let go, or when you simply have nowhere to put the full weight of it. If you are asking the question, a consultation is an easy way to find out. *
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