Grief Therapy
Online in California & Bay Area
Grief doesn't follow a timeline or a checklist. It doesn't move in stages, it doesn't resolve cleanly, and it doesn't always look like sadness. Sometimes it looks like numbness, or anger, or a sudden wave that hits you in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday. Sometimes it looks like carrying on completely normally and wondering if something is wrong with you because you haven't fallen apart.
There is no right way to grieve. But there are ways to move through it that don't require you to do it alone.
At Compassionate Tides Therapy, I offer a compassionate, body-informed space to tend to your grief, whatever shape it takes, whatever you've lost, however long you've been carrying it.
Is this you?
You might be in the right place if:
You've lost someone or something significant and the world expects you to be further along than you are. You feel guilty about how you're grieving, whether that's too much, too little, or in ways that don't look like what grief is "supposed to" look like. You're caring for someone who is dying and carrying the weight of anticipatory loss while still showing up every day. You lost a pet and have felt dismissed or minimized by people who don't understand the depth of that bond. You're holding your grief privately because you don't want to burden others or because you're not sure it counts. Your body is carrying the grief even when you're not actively thinking about it: fatigue, physical heaviness, difficulty being present.
Grief is not a problem to be solved or a process to be optimized. It is a human experience that deserves to be witnessed and held with care.
What makes this approach different
Grief therapy is not about moving on. It is about learning to carry what you've lost in a way that doesn't require you to leave it behind or hold it at a distance.
Many people come to grief therapy expecting to be taught how to feel better faster. What they often need instead is a space where they are allowed to feel exactly what they feel, without being redirected toward acceptance before they're ready, without someone else's timeline imposed on their process, and without having to protect the people around them from the full weight of what they're experiencing.
My approach to grief is somatic, relational, and paced entirely by you.
Somatic Therapy recognizes that grief lives in the body as much as in the mind. The heaviness, the tightness, the waves of sensation that arrive without warning: these are not symptoms to be eliminated. They are part of how the body processes profound loss. We work with them rather than around them.
IFS (Internal Family Systems) offers a way to understand the different parts of grief. The part that is devastated, the part that is numb, the part that is angry, the part that is trying to hold everything together. IFS creates space for all of those parts to be present without any of them having to be in charge all the time.
Relational and attachment-informed care is woven throughout. Loss is fundamentally relational, and healing grief often involves understanding the attachment that was lost, what it meant, and how to stay in connection with it in a new way.
You are not grieving wrong. You are grieving.
Presentations I frequently work with:
-
The loss of someone central to your life, whether expected or sudden, leaves a particular kind of absence that doesn't simply fill back in. Grief after death can be acute, prolonged, complicated, or all three at different moments. All of it belongs here.
-
The loss of a pet is real loss. The bond between a person and their animal companion can be among the most uncomplicated, unconditional relationships in their life, and losing it deserves the same quality of care and recognition as any other grief. You do not have to justify or minimize this here.
-
Grief does not only begin after a loss. When someone you love is dying, or when you are caring for someone through serious illness or cognitive decline, grief begins long before the end. Anticipatory grief is its own experience: exhausting, isolating, and often invisible to others who don't yet see what you're already losing. Caregiver grief also includes the grief of watching someone change, of losing the relationship you had before illness, and of carrying tremendous responsibility while having very little space to fall apart.
What to Expect
Grief therapy at Compassionate Tides does not follow a fixed curriculum. We begin where you are. Some people need space to speak the unspeakable. Others need help understanding what's happening in their body. Others are trying to figure out how to keep living while also honoring what they've lost. We follow your lead.
Sessions are telehealth, available to adults throughout California. I am a private-pay practice and can provide superbills for potential out-of-network reimbursement.
Frequently Asked Questions
-
No. There is no waiting period. Some people find support most helpful in the immediate aftermath of a loss. Others come months or years later when the grief has shifted but not resolved. Wherever you are in the process, there is a place for it here.
-
Also no. Grief does not have an expiration date, and unprocessed grief has a way of making itself known, sometimes in ways that don't look obviously like grief. If you are still carrying something, it is not too late to tend to it.
-
Please don't. Pet loss is one of the most underacknowledged forms of grief, and the dismissiveness people often receive from others can compound the pain significantly. Your grief for your animal is welcome here without qualification.
-
It does. Anticipatory grief is a recognized and significant experience, and caregivers often need support long before the people around them realize it. What you're carrying counts, and you deserve support for it.
-
Grief therapy may bring things to the surface that you've been managing by keeping them contained. That can feel harder in the short term. The goal is not to make grief more painful but to create conditions where it can actually move rather than stay frozen. Most people find that having a consistent, safe space for it ultimately provides significant relief.
-
Yes. I offer a free 20-minute consultation for prospective clients. You can book directly here.
Grief is not something to get over. It is something to move through, with the right support alongside you.
You don't have to carry this alone.
