Grief counseling · Los Angeles
When grief stays where it is.
Most grief doesn't need a therapist. When it gets stuck — prolonged grief disorder, complicated grief, the long bereavement after a long marriage — targeted therapy helps. We do this work often, and well.
What grief therapy is — and isn't
Most grief is a process. Therapy is for when the process gets stuck.
The first thing we tell people about grief is that most of it doesn't need us. Grief is something the body and the mind do — slowly, in waves, over months and sometimes years. People grieve in their own shape and on their own schedule. Most never come to a therapist, and most are not unwell for not having come. That's worth saying clearly.
Grief therapy is for the moments when grief gets stuck. The most defined version of "stuck" is prolonged grief disorder — added to the DSM-5-TR in 2022. The criteria are roughly: more than 12 months after the loss (6 months in children), the grief is still intense and intrusive most days. There's a feeling that part of yourself has died, an inability to re-engage with the life around you, intense longing that doesn't ease. About one in ten bereaved adults eventually meets criteria; for those, targeted therapy helps a great deal.
We also work often with anticipatory grief — grief for a loss that hasn't happened yet but is coming. A spouse with a terminal diagnosis. A parent with advancing dementia. Your own end-of-life. It's real grief, it deserves a room, and naming it doesn't hurry the loss along.
And we work with complicated grief after long marriages — the bereavement that comes when so much of an identity has been woven, daily, into another person for forty or fifty years. The "I don't know who I am without him" grief. That isn't pathology; it's a real territory. We walk through it with you.
What a session looks like
Slow, careful, with the person you lost in the room.
Settling in
The first ten minutes. We don't dive into the loss the second you sit down. We get coffee, we look out the window, we let the hour become a hour. Grief work needs a soft start.
The work
About forty minutes. Sometimes telling a story we've told before. Sometimes a memory we haven't said out loud. Sometimes the practical — the empty side of the bed, the dinner that doesn't happen anymore. We follow what's loud today.
Coming back
The last ten minutes. We come back to the room — the room you'll go home to, the rest of the day. We mark what came up. We don't always end with a plan; sometimes we just end gently.
What it can help with
When grief therapy makes the most difference.
Grief & bereavement
Loss in later life — a spouse, a sibling, a long friendship. The strange new shape of a life rearranged around an absence.
End-of-life & terminal illness
Anticipatory grief — yours, or for someone close. Worth speaking aloud, even when others want to look away.
Late-life depression
Grief and depression after loss often blur. We can hold both — and treat the depression while honoring the grief.
"I thought I was supposed to be over it. Sixteen months. The therapist asked me, gently, who told me that. I'd never thought about who told me that. We worked from there."
Common questions
About grief therapy.
Does most grief need therapy?
No. Most grief is something the body and mind do on their own — slowly, in waves, over months and years. Most people don't need professional help to grieve. Therapy makes the most difference when grief gets stuck — when it stays as raw at month 13 as it was at month 1, or when it gets tangled with depression.
What is prolonged grief disorder?
Prolonged grief disorder is a diagnosis added to the DSM-5-TR in 2022. It describes grief that's still intense, intrusive, and life-disrupting more than a year after the loss — feeling like the loss just happened, identity confusion, an inability to re-engage with life, intense longing that doesn't ease. It responds well to targeted therapy.
What is anticipatory grief?
Grief about a loss that hasn't happened yet but is coming — a spouse with a terminal diagnosis, a parent with advancing dementia, your own end-of-life. It's real grief and it's worth speaking aloud. We work with anticipatory grief often.
How is grief therapy different from regular therapy?
It uses methods specifically developed for grief — including approaches that help integrate the loss into your life rather than "getting over" it. The goal is never to forget; it's to live alongside the loss in a way that lets the rest of life come back into focus. For prolonged grief, we use methods with strong research support.
Is grief counseling covered by Medicare?
Yes — when grief reaches the level of a clinical concern (prolonged grief disorder, depression, an adjustment disorder), Medicare Part B and most Medicare Advantage plans cover the therapy. We verify benefits before your first session — call (626) 354-6440.
If the loss is still as loud as it was.
You don't have to know whether what you're carrying is "regular grief" or something stuck. That's part of what the first session is for. Mostly we listen.