Grief & Loss
What can grief and loss look like?
Grief is a deeply human response to losing someone or something meaningful.
Although grief is often associated with the death of someone we love, it can also follow the end of a significant relationship, divorce, changes in health or ability, loss of a role or identity, major life transitions, or the loss of a future you expected to have.
Grief can affect us emotionally, cognitively, physically, and relationally.
You may experience:
Intense sadness or emotional pain
Periods of depression or hopelessness
Anxiety about the future
Anger or irritability
Guilt, regret, or self-blame
Difficulty accepting that the loss has occurred
A desire to bargain with or mentally undo what happened
Emotional numbness
Loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed
Difficulty concentrating
Changes in sleep or appetite
A desire to withdraw from other people
Avoidance of places, people, conversations, or experiences that remind you of the loss
Grief often comes in waves. There may be moments when life begins to feel more familiar again followed unexpectedly by periods of intense sadness, longing, anger, or disbelief.
There is no single correct timeline or way to grieve.
For many people, the intensity of grief gradually changes over time. Sometimes, however, grief remains so persistent or consuming that it becomes difficult to reconnect with relationships, responsibilities, and everyday life.
How do I know when I may need help?
Grieving does not mean that something is wrong with you, and experiencing strong emotions after a significant loss does not necessarily require treatment.
Therapy may be helpful when grief begins to make it increasingly difficult to participate in your life.
You may notice yourself becoming more socially isolated, continually avoiding reminders of the loss, struggling to imagine a meaningful future, or feeling unable to emotionally engage with the people and experiences around you.
Sometimes people also become caught in repetitive attempts to understand the loss:
Why did this happen?
What could I have done differently?
What if I had said something else?
Why didn't I see it coming?
Our minds naturally search for understanding after painful experiences. But sometimes there simply isn't an answer that can fully resolve what happened.
Therapy can provide a place to acknowledge these unanswered questions while gradually learning how to move forward without requiring perfect certainty or resolution.
How can therapy help with grief?
Grief therapy is not about getting you to forget what happened or pushing you to “move on.”
Instead, therapy can create space for the emotions, memories, relationships, and unanswered questions surrounding a loss while helping you gradually reconnect with your life.
One important part of treatment can involve learning to recognize and make room for the emotions that naturally accompany grief.
When sadness, anger, longing, guilt, or anxiety feel overwhelming, it is understandable to begin avoiding situations that bring those feelings to the surface.
Over time, however, that avoidance can make life increasingly small.
Therapy can help you gradually reconnect with people, places, activities, and experiences that matter to you, even when doing so also brings grief with it.
The goal is not to make the sadness disappear before you begin living again.
Instead, you can learn how to carry grief while continuing to participate in a meaningful life.
What about things that were left unresolved?
Some of the most difficult parts of grief involve what never had the opportunity to happen.
There may have been conversations you wanted to have.
Things you wanted to say.
Questions you wanted answered.
Conflicts you hoped would eventually be resolved.
Experiences you believed you would someday share.
Sometimes there is grief not only for the person, relationship, or life circumstance that was lost, but also for the chapters of your life that will now be different because of that loss.
Therapy can provide a place to give voice to those experiences.
Rather than continually searching for a way to change what cannot be changed, treatment can help you acknowledge and grieve both what happened and what did not get to happen.
Part of healing may involve learning that it is possible to move forward even when every question has not been answered and every relationship has not been perfectly resolved.
How can Acceptance and Commitment Therapy help with grief?
At Mauna Psychology, grief treatment may incorporate principles from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT.
ACT does not approach grief as an emotion that needs to be eliminated.
Instead, therapy can help you develop the ability to make room for sadness, longing, anger, uncertainty, and other painful emotions while continuing to move toward the people and experiences that matter to you.
Mindfulness skills can help you notice waves of grief without becoming completely consumed by them or feeling that you must immediately suppress, avoid, or solve what you are feeling.
Treatment may also involve clarifying your values and identifying what you want your life to stand for moving forward.
Loss can profoundly change the life we expected to have.
Therapy can help you ask:
What matters to me now?
What relationships do I want to nurture?
What parts of myself do I want to rebuild?
How do I want to carry this relationship or experience with me as I continue living?
This does not require leaving the person or experience behind.
Instead, it can involve developing a new relationship with the loss while gradually creating room for meaning, connection, and new experiences.
Does grief therapy only help after a death?
No.
Grief can occur whenever something meaningful is lost.
Therapy may help with grief related to:
Death of a loved one
Divorce or separation
The end of an important relationship
Pregnancy loss
Loss of health or physical ability
Career or identity changes
Loss of community or belonging
Major family changes
Faith or spiritual transitions
Life circumstances that did not unfold as expected
The loss of an imagined or hoped-for future
Sometimes these losses are less visible to other people, but that does not make the grief associated with them less meaningful.
What is the goal of grief therapy?
The goal of grief therapy is not to reach a point where the loss no longer matters.
Instead, treatment can help you develop a way of carrying the loss that allows more room for the rest of your life.
Over time, you may become better able to experience memories without needing to avoid them, reconnect with relationships and community, tolerate difficult waves of emotion, and begin imagining a future that is different from the one you originally expected.
Moving forward does not mean forgetting.
It can mean learning how to honor what mattered while continuing to build a life that still contains meaning, connection, and possibility.
Do you offer grief therapy in person or online?
Mauna Psychology offers in-person grief and loss therapy in Provo, Utah, as well as telehealth services for eligible clients.
If grief has begun to make it difficult to reconnect with relationships, participate in daily life, or imagine a meaningful path forward, therapy can provide a supportive space to process what has been lost and begin discovering what moving forward can look like.