Offering individual, couples, family and group therapy in-office and online.
Approved to practice telehealth under PSYPACT and with NY State Residents.
Approved to practice telehealth under PSYPACT and with NY State Residents.
Is your sadness so deep that you lose sleep in fear that you’ll be alone forever?
Do you feel stuck in your grief, unable to move forward?
Have those who once supported you returned to their own lives and left you alone with your pain?
If any of this resonates with you, you are not alone. Grief is complex, deeply personal, and often isolating—but healing is possible.
“The people we are and the lives that we lead are determined, for better and worse, by our loss experiences.”
From infancy through old age, we face losses—some expected, others unimaginable.
As Judith Viorst wrote in Necessary Losses, growth requires us to confront and accept losses.
Some losses follow the natural order of life; we anticipate the passing of grandparents, and we know that childhood and adolescence give way to adulthood and old age, where we lose our elasticity and resilience—where change is inevitable.
But other losses—like the sudden death of a loved one, a tragedy, or the betrayal of someone we trust—shatter our sense of reality, making grief a complex challenge.
With each passage and event, whether anticipated or not, whether in the natural course of events or not, there is a crisis: that is, we emerge differently than when we began.
Even positive life transitions, like becoming a parent, replace the couple’s solitude and create new identities for those involved. With each change, we leave something behind.
With loss comes grief. It involves reconciling our past with our present, letting go, and moving through life with a new reality without the prior connection or relationship.
Grief can take many forms. Instrumental grievers keep moving and involve themselves in projects or activities, while others experience deep emotional waves questioning life’s meaning. Or a blending of the two.
Grief can lead to resilience and growth or severe psychological issues.
There is no right or wrong way to experience and process grief, yet it is easier for some and more challenging for others. Factors that help organize our grief experience include but are not limited to, the nature of the loss, the qualitative aspect of our relationship with our loved one during our lifetime and at the time just before their departure, pre-existing emotional conditions, unhealed wounds from developmental trauma, attachment style, and available supports, changes to our lifestyle and, in the end, how much our ego can handle.
Working through grief is not a linear process. The five stages of grief, first identified by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—can happen in any way and at any time.
For some, the process of grieving seems stifled. Sadness, anger, despair, longing, emptiness, and many other states are part of the process. Yet, it may be impossible to access and process feelings or experiences; memories can remain alive for a long time, interfering with day-to-day living and relationships.
When grief does not process—when we are overloaded, and the movement stops, we may have trouble managing intrusive thoughts and images and overwhelming pain, sadness, melancholy, and depression.
Despite unrealistic expectations of what the bereavement process should look like, at times, an inability to gain traction or movement, or your emotions become insurmountable, and you get stuck. Once the dust settles and those who were there for support have resumed their lives, we are left alone with our pain.
There may be a current reactivation of the trauma or loss, numbing and dissociation, a longing and detachment. Here, grief becomes complicated
Grief Counseling can be a powerful tool to help manage expectations and create a safe, supportive space for the deep grief and accompanying emotions. Coming into and through grief means crafting a new life in the absence of a meaningful relationship. It means learning to love and live without that person or that object or experience the way it was. It also means learning to be without that unhealthy relationship, disease, or addiction.
I offer an integrated approach to healing, drawing from both conventional therapies and state-of-the-art evidence-based techniques rooted in Western and Eastern philosophies.
Together, we can:
You don’t have to navigate grief alone. Whether your loss was expected or sudden, healing is possible. Schedule your confidential consultation today and begin finding your way forward.