Grief, Bereavement and Loss

Are you struggling with the pain of losing someone or something important to you?

Grief is a natural response to loss, yet it can feel overwhelming, confusing and deeply isolating. Whether your loss is recent or happened many years ago, you may find yourself carrying feelings that are difficult to make sense of or share with others.

Perhaps you are grieving the death of someone close to you, the end of a relationship, the loss of a hoped-for future, a change in health, or a significant life transition. Whatever form your loss has taken, grief can affect every aspect of life and leave us feeling as though the world has changed in ways that others cannot fully understand.

There is no right or wrong way to grieve, and no set timeline for healing.

Understanding grief and loss

Grief is often associated with bereavement, but we can experience grief following many different types of loss.

You may be grieving:

  • The death of a loved one

  • The end of a relationship or marriage

  • A miscarriage or fertility difficulties

  • Changes in health or physical ability

  • The loss of a career or important role

  • Moving away from a place that felt like home

  • Changes in family relationships

  • A childhood you wish you had experienced

  • Dreams, hopes or plans that can no longer be realised

Loss can affect not only what we have lost, but also our sense of identity, safety and connection.

How grief can affect us

Grief can bring a wide range of emotional, physical and psychological responses.

You may experience:

  • Sadness, numbness or emptiness

  • Anger, guilt or regret

  • Anxiety or difficulty concentrating

  • Changes in sleep or appetite

  • Feeling disconnected from others

  • A sense of meaninglessness or loss of purpose

  • Unexpected waves of emotion

  • Difficulty accepting what has happened

  • A feeling that life has changed forever

Many people worry that they are grieving "wrong" or that they should be coping better. In reality, grief is often far less predictable than we expect.

How therapy can help

Therapy offers a compassionate space to explore your experience of loss without pressure to move on or be anything other than where you are.

Together, we can make sense of the emotions you are carrying, explore the impact of the loss on your life and relationships, and create space for both grief and healing.

Sometimes grief can become complicated by unresolved experiences, trauma, guilt or unfinished feelings. In these situations, therapy may help you process what has happened and find a way to carry the loss that feels more manageable.

My approach is integrative and relational, drawing on person-centred, psychodynamic, attachment-informed and trauma-informed approaches includingEMDR and IFS (internal family systems therapy). EMDR can be an effective tool to process traumatic losses and additional complications around the loss that add layers of suffering on top of the natural grief we all feel when we lose someone important to us. It isn’t a way to forget or erase the pain and cannot short-cut the grieving process, but helps alleviate unnecessary suffering linked to aspects of trauma (distressing images/flashbacks from how it happened), mis-placed guilt, and/or negative self-referential beliefs attached to the loss (e.g. “it was my fault” “I should have done more”). I believe that each person's experience of grief is unique and deserves to be met with sensitivity, understanding and respect.

Finding a way forward

Healing from grief does not mean forgetting, letting go, or leaving someone behind.

Often, it involves finding a way to honour what has been lost whilst gradually rebuilding a meaningful life around the absence that remains.

Over time, many people discover that although the grief does not disappear completely, it becomes possible to carry it differently. The pain softens, new meaning emerges and life begins to expand around the loss.

If you are struggling with grief, bereavement or a significant life loss, therapy can provide a supportive space to help you navigate this difficult journey at your own pace. Feel free to reach out to me if any of this speaks to your experience, and we can set up an initial call to see how I can help you in your grieving process.