Therapy Group of DC
Grief doesn’t follow a schedule. It doesn’t wait until you’re ready, and it doesn’t care that you have a meeting at nine. In Washington DC — where productivity is identity and “How are you?” is a greeting, not a real question — grief can feel like something you’re supposed to handle quietly and efficiently. But the grieving process doesn’t work that way. Loss changes your life, and no amount of staying busy changes that.
Whether you’re grieving the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, a career that defined you, or a version of your life that no longer exists, the feelings that surface are real and serious. You might be functioning — still showing up, still performing — but something fundamental has shifted. The world looks different now, and you may feel overwhelmed by waves of sadness, anger, guilt, or numbness that come without warning.
At Therapy Group of DC, our grief therapists specialize in grief counseling for adults living and working in Washington, DC. We provide support that meets you where you are — not where others think you should be. Our approach is rooted in psychodynamic and existential therapy, which means we don’t just help you cope with difficult emotions. We help you understand what this loss means in the context of your whole life, your relationships, and your sense of self.
Grief therapy isn’t about “getting over” your loss or rushing through a grieving process with a timeline attached. It’s about learning to carry what happened differently — integrating the loss into who you are now, rather than pretending you can go back to who you were before. That’s what real grief support looks like.
We see a lot of people who wait months — sometimes years — before coming to therapy after a loss. They tell themselves they should be “past this by now.” There’s no expiration date on grief. If the loss of a loved one or a significant life change still affects how you move through the world, grief counseling can help — whether it happened six weeks ago or six years ago.
What Is Grief Counseling?
Grief counseling is a form of individual therapy designed to help you process loss — not by rushing through stages or following someone else’s grief journey, but by creating space to feel, understand, and eventually integrate what happened. Your grief therapist works with you to explore the meaning of your loss, the feelings it surfaces, and the ways it’s reshaping your life, your relationships, and your sense of who you are.
- Processing the feelings of grief. Sadness, anger, guilt, relief, numbness — grief brings up emotions that are often contradictory and confusing. Therapy provides a safe space to experience all of them without judgment, at your own pace.
- Understanding what the loss means to you. Every loss carries meaning beyond the surface — it connects to your identity, your attachments, your sense of safety and forward motion. Grief therapy helps you explore those deeper layers.
- Rebuilding a sense of purpose. Grief can freeze you in place. The healing process involves finding a way to move through the world again — not by forgetting your loved one, but by carrying your grief with more clarity and less weight.
- Addressing grief that gets complicated. Sometimes the grieving process doesn’t resolve on its own. It gets stuck, intensifies, or bleeds into depression and anxiety. Specialized grief counseling helps when grief overwhelms your daily activities and relationships.
The goal of grief therapy isn’t to “fix” you or make the feelings go away. It’s to help you develop a relationship with your loss that allows you to grieve fully and live fully — at the same time.
Jessica
Michael
Rose
Keith
Kevin
Rob
Types of Grief and Loss We Treat
Grief takes many forms — and not all of them are recognized by the people around you. Our grief therapists work with every kind of loss, including experiences that others may not validate or understand. Each type of grief brings its own feelings, its own grieving process, and its own path toward healing.
Grief often arrives alongside major life changes — divorce, retirement, relocation, or becoming an empty nester. When loss and transition overlap, therapy helps you process both.
Grief raises the biggest questions — about meaning, mortality, and how to keep going when the world feels fundamentally different. Existential approaches meet those questions directly.
When the grieving process intensifies instead of easing — persistent yearning, difficulty accepting the loss, and feeling stuck months or years later.
Losing a parent reshapes your identity, your family, and your sense of safety — no matter your age when it happens.
Grieving a loss before it happens — watching a loved one decline, facing a terminal diagnosis, or preparing for an inevitable ending.
Miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant loss carry a grief that is often minimized by others but profoundly felt by those experiencing it.
The end of a marriage or partnership can trigger a grief process as intense as any death — especially when the loss was not your choice.
Loss that society doesn't fully recognize — loss of a pet, estrangement from family, career identity, community, or ideals you believed in.
How Grief Counseling Helps
Grief doesn’t just change your feelings — it changes how you think, how your body feels, and how you relate to the people around you. Many of our clients come to grief therapy surprised by the range of what they’re experiencing. Difficulty concentrating, disrupted sleep patterns, physical fatigue, painful memories surfacing at unexpected moments, a sense that life has lost its meaning — these are all common responses to the loss of a loved one or another significant loss. Grief counseling helps you process all of it, not just the sadness.
Creating space to grieve in DC’s demanding culture
In Washington DC’s achievement-oriented environment, there’s enormous pressure to “bounce back” after loss. Your colleagues may not know what to say. Bereavement leave is rarely enough. And DC’s transient nature means many adults here are grieving without the family or community support they’d have back home. Grief counseling gives you a safe space to slow down and feel what you’re feeling — without performance pressure, without a timeline, and without someone telling you it’s time to move forward.
Addressing grief alongside depression and anxiety
Grief often brings depression and anxiety with it — or intensifies feelings that were already present. Some people experiencing grief also struggle with painful memories, difficulty engaging in daily activities, changes in sleep patterns, and a persistent sense of hopelessness. Our grief counselors are trained to hold the full picture, providing treatment for grief and its ripple effects as interconnected rather than separate challenges. When the grieving process gets complicated, we have the clinical depth to help.
You Don't Have to Grieve Alone
Our grief therapists in Washington DC provide compassionate, expert support for every kind of loss. Whether your grief is fresh or something you've carried for years, we're here to help.
Is Grief Counseling Right for You?
You might benefit from grief therapy if you:
What to know:
- There is no minimum or maximum time that makes grief “appropriate” for therapy — any loss that affects your life deserves compassionate support
- Grief counseling is effective for both recent losses and grief that has gone unprocessed for years — it’s never too late to seek grief support
- Complicated grief — grief that intensifies or doesn’t ease over time — affects roughly 7–10% of bereaved adults and responds well to specialized treatment
- With the right therapeutic support, most people develop a sustainable relationship with their loss and rebuild a meaningful life
Our Approach to Grief Therapy
We draw on multiple evidence-based approaches depending on your loss, your grieving process, and what resonates with you. Every therapist on our grief team tailors their work to your specific needs, personality, and goals.
Psychodynamic Therapy
Goes beneath the surface to explore how your loss connects to your life story, your relationships, and your sense of self. Psychodynamic therapy helps you understand the deeper meaning of grief — not just the feelings on the surface, but the patterns and attachments underneath.
Learn More →Existential Therapy
When grief raises questions about mortality, meaning, and purpose, existential therapy provides a framework for engaging those questions rather than pushing them aside. Especially valuable when loss has fundamentally changed how you see the world and your place in it.
Learn More →Integrative & Attachment-Based
Combines elements of IFS, narrative therapy, attachment-based work, and mindfulness depending on what your grief needs. Some losses call for cognitive processing. Others call for somatic or relational work. Your therapist matches the approach to the moment.
What to Expect from Grief Therapy
The grief therapy process unfolds at your pace. Here’s a general sense of how it works — though your grief therapist will adapt everything to what you actually need. There’s no script and no rigid timeline for the healing process.
Getting Oriented
Your therapist starts by understanding your loss — not just what happened, but what it means to you. The first few sessions focus on building a therapeutic relationship where you feel safe enough to be honest about what you’re experiencing. You don’t need to have the right words. You don’t need to cry. You just need to show up. That’s the hardest part, and it’s enough.
Building Understanding
Together, you explore the layers of your grief — the feelings, the memories, the meaning, and the ways the loss is affecting your daily life, your relationships, and your sense of self. Your therapist helps you see patterns and connections in the grieving process that you might not notice on your own. This is also where we check in on how grief may be interacting with anxiety, depression, or other challenges.
Active Processing
This is where deeper healing happens. You begin working through difficult emotions, painful memories, and the questions your loss has surfaced about meaning, identity, and what comes next. Your grief counselor provides support and therapeutic techniques — drawn from psychodynamic therapy, existential therapy, IFS, and other approaches — to help you process what needs to be felt, not avoided.
Integration and Growth
As your relationship with the loss evolves, grief therapy shifts toward integrating what you’ve learned into how you live. You build resilience, develop forward motion, and find ways to carry your grief that don’t keep you stuck. Many clients begin to discover new sources of meaning and connection during this phase. Sessions may become less frequent as you rebuild.
Why Washington DC Chooses Therapy Group of DC for Grief Counseling
The unique pressures of grieving in DC
Washington DC’s professional culture doesn’t leave much room for grief. Hill staffers, attorneys, consultants, nonprofit directors, and government professionals face enormous pressure to maintain performance during personal loss. The city’s fast pace and constant change can make grieving feel like a luxury you can’t afford. And DC’s transient population means many adults here are processing the loss of a loved one without the family support, community, or lifelong friendships they’d have back home. Our grief therapists understand what it’s like to carry grief in a city that expects you to keep moving forward.
Grief specialists — not generalists
Our team includes therapists whose clinical training and practice center on grief and loss. We match you with a grief counselor based on the type of loss you’re experiencing, your therapy options and preferences, and what feels right — not whoever has the next opening. With doctoral-level psychologists and licensed counselors trained in psychodynamic therapy, existential therapy, IFS, and attachment-based work, we bring compassionate expertise and genuine depth to grief counseling. Unlike support groups — which can be valuable for some people — individual grief therapy gives you dedicated, private space to process your specific loss with a clinician trained in the complexities of bereavement.
What real progress looks like
Real progress in grief therapy doesn’t look like “feeling better” on a straight line. It looks like the waves of emotion coming less often, lasting less long, and knocking you down less hard. It means being able to remember your loved one without being overwhelmed. It means finding meaning and purpose again — not instead of your grief, but alongside it. The healing process takes time, and our therapists walk that path with you through the therapeutic relationship itself, not just through techniques or coping strategies.
What often surprises people is how much grief connects to things they didn’t expect. A parent’s death surfaces old family dynamics. A career loss reveals how much of their identity was wrapped up in a title. A breakup echoes earlier attachment wounds. The best grief counseling follows these threads — because that’s where the real healing happens. We encourage clients to be curious about what their grief is telling them, not just to push through it.
Our Grief Counselors
Every therapist on our grief team brings specific training in loss, bereavement counseling, and the deeper therapeutic work that grief demands. We’ll match you with a grief therapist whose approach and experience fit your situation — so your grief journey has the right support from the start.
