Specialities
Grief & Loss Therapy in Brookline, MA
Grief doesn’t follow a schedule, and it rarely looks the way we expect. You might be years past a loss and still find yourself unexpectedly undone by it — a song, an anniversary, a quiet Sunday morning. Or you might be in the middle of a loss right now, trying to hold down a job, a family, a life, while carrying something that feels too heavy to name.
Grief isn't only about death. It can follow the end of a marriage, a friendship that faded, a career that didn't turn out as hoped, an estrangement from a parent or child, a health diagnosis, or the loss of who you used to be before life changed you. Whatever form it takes, grief deserves more than being pushed aside so we can "get back to normal."
In short: I offer grief and loss therapy in Brookline, MA, and via telehealth across Massachusetts, for people who want more than a place to vent. My work is about understanding grief at its root — what this particular loss means to you, how it connects to your history, and how to move forward without abandoning what, or who, mattered to you.
How Grief Shows Up
Grief rarely announces itself simply as sadness. In my practice, I often see it appear as:
Persistent fatigue, low motivation, or a sense of just going through the motions
Difficulty concentrating at work or in relationships
Anxiety about other people you love, or about your own mortality
Physical symptoms: trouble sleeping, appetite changes, tension, or unexplained aches
Irritability or anger that seems disproportionate to what's actually happening
Guilt — about things left unsaid, decisions made, or even about moving forward
Withdrawing from friends, family, or activities you once enjoyed
A feeling of being "stuck" — unable to move through the loss or unsure you're allowed to
If any of this sounds familiar, it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It means you’re grieving, and grief takes the shape it needs to take.
How I Approach Grief Therapy
My approach is contemporary psychodynamic — I don't offer a scripted set of coping techniques or a fixed number of "stages" to move through. Instead, we work to understand the particular meaning of your loss, so that healing is rooted in who you are and what this loss actually represents in your life.
Psychodynamic: Getting to the Root of Your Grief
Every loss carries its own history. The way you grieve is shaped by your relationship with what was lost, by earlier losses you may not have fully processed, and by patterns you learned long before this loss occurred. Rather than treating grief as a symptom to manage, I work with you to understand its roots — why this loss affects you the way it does, what unfinished business it may be stirring up, and what it will mean to genuinely integrate it rather than simply move past it. This insight-oriented work tends to produce change that continues to deepen well after our sessions end.
Attachment-Based: Grief as a Disruption in Connection
At its core, grief is often a rupture in attachment — the loss of a person, relationship, or role that anchored your sense of safety and identity. My training in attachment theory, developed through fellowships at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, gives me a framework for understanding how your early bonds shape the way you experience separation and loss now. We look at how your attachment history — the blueprint formed by your earliest relationships — is showing up in how you're grieving today, and how you can build new, sustaining connections even as you carry this loss forward.
Trauma-Informed: When Loss Is Sudden or Overwhelming
Some losses are traumatic — sudden, violent, ambiguous, or compounded by circumstances that made it impossible to say goodbye the way you needed to. When grief is entangled with trauma, the nervous system often needs care before deeper reflection can happen safely. My background at The Trauma Center, working under Bessel van der Kolk, shaped how I recognize and work with traumatic grief: at a pace that respects your capacity, with attention to how loss lives in the body as well as the mind, and without ever asking you to revisit more than you're ready for.
Mindfulness-Based: Staying Present With What Is
Grief can pull you into the past or push you anxiously toward a future without the person or thing you've lost. Mindfulness-based practices — informed by training including "The Power of Awareness" with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield — offer a way to stay grounded in the present moment, even when that moment is painful. This isn't about suppressing grief or rushing toward acceptance. It's about building the capacity to be with difficult feelings without being swept away by them, so you can keep living your life alongside your grief rather than in spite of it.
Why Work With Me
I've been in clinical practice for over 21 years, and grief has been part of that work throughout — with college students losing a parent mid-semester, professionals grieving a career or relationship that didn't go as planned, parents navigating loss while raising children, and people in later life grieving friends, spouses, or their own changing capacities. Early on, I worked as a residential counselor at Gould Farm, a therapeutic community where I saw how connection, purpose, and patience — not quick fixes — allow people to move through even the darkest chapters of life. That understanding still shapes how I think about grief: not as something to resolve quickly, but as something to meet with depth and care.
I see clients at my Brookline office, 1577 Beacon St, and offer secure telehealth sessions to clients throughout Massachusetts.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does grief therapy take?
There's no fixed timeline. Some people come for weeks or months around a specific loss; others find the work opens into longer-term exploration of patterns that predate the loss. We'll talk openly about pacing and check in regularly on what's helping.
Is grief therapy different from regular therapy?
Somewhat. Grief therapy holds space specifically for mourning and meaning-making, rather than assuming something needs to be "fixed." But my overall approach — contemporary psychodynamic, attachment-based, trauma-informed, and mindfulness-based — is the same lens I bring to all my work: understanding the root of what you're experiencing, not just managing surface symptoms.
Can therapy help with grief that happened years ago?
Yes. Grief doesn't expire on a schedule, and unprocessed loss from years or decades ago can still shape how you feel and relate to others today. It's common to come in for a current stressor and discover an older, unresolved loss underneath it. That work is something we can do together, whenever you're ready.
Do you work with anticipatory grief?
Yes. Anticipatory grief — grieving while caring for a loved one with a terminal illness, or preparing for a loss you can already see coming — is real grief, and it deserves real support. I work with clients navigating this alongside caregiving responsibilities, family dynamics, and the exhaustion of grieving before a loss has fully happened.
Is grief therapy available via telehealth?
Yes. I'm licensed in Massachusetts and offer secure telehealth sessions statewide, in addition to in-person sessions at my Brookline office. Many clients find that meeting from home, where they can be fully present with difficult emotions, makes this work more accessible.
I'm here for you.
Grief can feel isolating, but you don’t have to carry it alone. If you’re ready to talk, I offer a free 15-minute phone consultation — a low-pressure way to share what’s going on and see whether we’re a good fit.