Whether you’ve lost a parent, child, spouse, friend, or beloved pet, all grief has one thing in common: it hurts, and it often feels unbearable.
Real talk: grief is not easy, and it’s even harder to get over on your own.
You may feel like your emotions have “frozen” in order to function with daily life.
You may develop depression, anxiety, or other mental illnesses (such as dissociations), or you may feel that while your friends and family are supportive, they can’t truly understand your pain.
You may also feel that the support you once received from those around you, while helpful at the time, started to wane once time passed.
This can feel even more overwhelming when recent losses trigger past losses.
Whatever your grief looks like, our trained therapists are here to help you navigate and overcome this difficult chapter.
One of the most common questions asked by bereaved clients is, “Am I doing this right?”
In our experience, grief is not a linear process and there is no specific timeline for overcoming it.
It’s completely different for everyone.
But most often, it comes in waves.
Some days you feel fine, and some days you feel awash with pain and loss that feels bottomless.
What’s important is that you are moving through the process at a pace that feels comfortable for you and honoring your own needs, limitations, and feelings as you do.
For some, grief is a shorter process that can last several months, and for others, it can take years.
We will be here for you for as long as you need the support and we’ll help you find peace and acceptance as you face your loss.
We’re so confident in our extraordinary therapists that we guarantee you’ll love your match – or your money back.
At My LA Therapy, our highly-vetted Anxiety experts are selected not only for their clinical acumen but for who they are.
Grief and loss often snap us out of our comfortable lives.
We see for the first time, what was always there: our utter powerlessness.
This is no joke and can rock us to our core.
It brings up deep, existential questions about the nature of our lives.
It forces us to confront our mortality, face our limitations, and ask ourselves difficult questions.
Like nothing else, grief brings into stark clarity so many painful truths about the human condition that we could previously ignore.
But with its pain comes many lessons: learning to surrender to what we cannot control, to tolerate uncertainty, and to create lives of great meaning and purpose.
Grief invites us to look more deeply at ourselves and to discover what matters to us and why.
At My LA Therapy, we are here to reckon with these issues alongside you and guide you into greater peace, resiliency, and acceptance.
While grief is not linear and everyone experiences it differently, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified several common stages people experience after a major loss: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
These do not happen in any particular order, and they may come and go in cycles.
When you experience the Denial stage, you may disbelieve what has happened.
You may feel like everything is a bad dream and that once you wake up, life will go back to normal.
You may cope by thinking that you received the wrong news and that someone else must have died.
You may continue living in a preferred reality—one in which the deceased is still alive.
In the Anger stage, reality sets in and you may feel enraged about how unfair your situation is.
You may question your higher power and direct your rage at those undeserving of it, and question why this happened to you and not someone else.
It’s important to allow yourself to feel every emotion during this stage—because expressing all of your emotions is the only way you’ll begin to move through them and heal.
When the Bargaining stage sets in, you may try to negotiate for normality and getting your old life back.
You may ask god for your loved one to come back, and offer a bargain of different things for that to happen.
You may feel extreme guilt and ponder “what if ” statements, thinking of what could have been had you been able to do more.
The Depression stage is characterized with emptiness and the realization that the person is gone forever.
You might feel numb and lack the motivation to even do basic tasks such as brushing your teeth or getting out of bed.
It is important to seek help during this time, especially if you’re feeling suicidal.
Lastly, Acceptance finally sets in.
There may be times when you feel acceptance for a while, only to return and move in and out of previous stages, and that’s all part of the process.
Grief comes in waves, each stage offers a new round to move through.
You might not ever “get over” the death of your loved one, but you will be able to move on in your life as you surrender to what is and allow yourself to move through your emotions.
As painful as it is, with the right help, you will come out stronger than before.
Our goal is to help you find compassion and kindness for yourself in your grief so that you can heal and rediscover a sense of meaning and peace.
Therapy can successfully improve your life by helping you minimize the anxiety in your life, identify and change underlying thought and behavioral patterns that contribute to your struggles, and provide you with strategies to decrease discomfort while restoring an overall sense of peace.
Our evidence-based, scientifically proven interventions are demonstrated by research to be effective in addressing mental health issues associated with grief, loss, and bereavement, such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD.
Learn more about our empirically based therapy modalities by visiting our Methods page.
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Clinical Director, Founder, Therapist
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I am blown away! I don’t write testimonials, unless I have been extremely moved by something. I was blessed to work with Brooke on a single session, and before this I was in therapy on and off with multiple therapists for the last 20 years of my life. Brooke was able to do more in one session than many years of work with my previous therapist. She has the true gift of great insight and compassion while also getting straight to the heart of your blind spots and unconscious issues in a way that has truly changed my life.
Skyler J.
There are people who are good at their work there are people like Brooke: who are born to do it. I cannot recommend Brooke more highly. I can only imagine where I would be today if I had started working with her years ago. From the beginning of our session, she knew exactly what tools and questions that would work for my particular psychology and my personal experience. No other therapist has been able to do that or anything close.
What I also really appreciate from our session is Brooke's ability to go directly to the source of the issue while also keeping a very gentle and kind energy with me. I felt very seen, understood, and supported. Everything and more that I could have ever asked for from a therapist. I have a severe trauma history and complex issues she was able to immediately identify and help. If she could help me, I know she can help you too.
Taylor E.
You did more in 45 minutes than my last therapist did in a year.
Jamie
With your help, I've finally started to understand that while my vivid imagination often wants to create terrifying monsters under the bed, in a lot of cases those monsters are nothing more than a heap of decidedly less-terrifying laundry I've avoided for too long that just needs to be aired out and put away. Which is definitely a lot easier than monster slaying. Thank you for shedding light in the dark places I was too afraid to face alone.
Morgan B.
I am extremely fortunate to work with Sydney, who is helping me create real internal change. The talent to listen well is Hall of Fame stuff, and she has that. She then follows with questions, strategies that are organic to the moment. I have come to believe that deep, radical, if occasionally deeply painful change ... and, then, healing can happen. I'm just at the lip of that last part - but would not have gotten there, AT ALL, without Sydney
Ric K.
The best therapist ever! Life-changing 🙂
Catherine H.
Right now, the work is changing my life, sometimes in inches, sometimes in miles.
Ric K.
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