Connect with licensed Marriage & Family Therapists who specialize in grief, loss, and bereavement. Compassionate support available in-person and via telehealth across all 50 states.
Grief therapy is a form of psychotherapy that provides a safe, structured space to process loss — whether from death, the end of a relationship, a miscarriage, or any significant change that involves losing something or someone that mattered. A grief therapist does not try to "fix" your grief or rush you through it. Instead, they help you make meaning of your loss, integrate it into your ongoing life, and find a way to carry it that does not require you to choose between honoring what you lost and continuing to live.
The experience of grief is one of the most universal and least-understood aspects of being human. While grief is not a mental illness, it can become a significant health concern — especially when it is complicated, traumatic, or happens in isolation. Research consistently shows that social support and therapeutic processing lead to better long-term outcomes than suffering through grief alone, and that untreated complicated grief significantly increases risk for depression, anxiety, and physical health problems.
Marriage and Family Therapists are uniquely suited to grief work because they understand how loss ripples through entire relationship systems — how the death of a parent reshapes sibling relationships, how losing a child strains a marriage, how anticipatory grief affects family dynamics around a terminal diagnosis. MFTs can work with individuals, couples, and families to help the whole system grieve together while honoring each person's unique experience of loss.
Grief therapists draw on multiple approaches depending on the type of loss, the individual's history, and where they are in their grief process.
CGT is a specialized evidence-based protocol designed for Prolonged Grief Disorder. It combines elements of CBT and exposure-based techniques to help clients who are stuck in acute grief — addressing avoidance of loss reminders, working toward acceptance, and restoring engagement with meaningful activities and relationships.
Narrative therapy helps grieving clients examine the stories they are telling about their loss — about themselves, the person they lost, and who they are in the absence of that relationship. By externalizing the problem and re-authoring the story, clients can find a way to continue a bond with what was lost while building a forward-facing identity.
Developed from Viktor Frankl's work, Meaning-Centered Therapy helps clients find purpose and significance even in the context of profound loss. Rather than asking "why did this happen," it explores what this loss asks of the griever — how it can be witnessed, honored, and woven into a life that retains value and direction.
EFT for grief helps clients move toward rather than away from painful emotions — anger, guilt, yearning, love — that are often at the core of complicated grief. By processing these emotions fully in a safe relationship with the therapist, clients can complete interrupted emotional cycles and restore a sense of internal wholeness.
Showing 6 of 5,100+ verified grief therapists
LMFT, PhD · 20 Years Experience
Portland, OR · In-Person & Telehealth
Dr. Ashford is a certified grief specialist with 20 years of experience supporting adults through all forms of loss — including anticipatory grief, traumatic death, and prolonged grief disorder. She is trained in CGT and brings a deep knowledge of attachment and meaning-making to her work. She has a particular heart for those who have experienced the death of a child or sibling.
Insurance: PacificSource, Moda Health, Aetna, Out-of-Network
LMFT · 13 Years Experience
Houston, TX · In-Person & Telehealth
Bernard specializes in grief within African and African American communities, where loss is often navigated through cultural and spiritual traditions that mainstream therapy sometimes misses. He integrates Narrative Therapy with a deep respect for community, ancestry, and faith as sources of resilience in grief. He also supports men who have lost a parent or partner to sudden or violent death.
Insurance: United Healthcare, Aetna, Ambetter, Medicaid Texas
LMFT, MA · 11 Years Experience
Minneapolis, MN · In-Person & Telehealth
Yvonne specializes in pregnancy loss, infertility grief, and perinatal bereavement — losses that are frequently minimized and poorly supported by society. She provides a tender, informed space for parents grieving miscarriage, stillbirth, or the loss of a newborn, as well as couples navigating the grief of infertility together. She holds certification in perinatal mental health.
Insurance: HealthPartners, PreferredOne, BCBS Minnesota, Cigna
LMFT · 16 Years Experience
Boston, MA · In-Person & Telehealth
Samuel is an experienced grief therapist who works with older adults facing the accumulation of losses — retirement, health decline, the deaths of multiple peers, and the grief of watching cognitive capacities change. He helps clients find meaning and legacy in the face of mortality using Meaning-Centered Therapy and existential approaches, honoring the full arc of a life lived.
Insurance: Tufts Health, BCBS MA, Aetna, Harvard Pilgrim
LMFT · 9 Years Experience
Phoenix, AZ · In-Person & Telehealth
Priscilla works with children, adolescents, and their families navigating loss — helping parents understand how children at different developmental stages experience grief, and facilitating family grief conversations that can feel impossible to start alone. She uses expressive and narrative approaches adapted for younger clients, creating space for grief through art, story, and play.
Insurance: United Healthcare, Cigna, Aetna, Ambetter AZ
LMFT, MS · 10 Years Experience
San Francisco, CA · Telehealth Only
Isadora specializes in ambiguous loss — the grief of estrangement, dementia, complex family ruptures, and situations where there is no formal ending to mourn. She helps clients grieve losses that society often does not recognize or validate, finding language for experiences that feel impossible to name. She is bilingual in English and Spanish and provides culturally grounded care.
Insurance: Anthem, Blue Shield CA, Kaiser, Out-of-Network Superbills
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Grief is the natural response to loss — a healthy, if painful, process of adjusting to a world without someone or something that mattered deeply. Complicated Grief (also called Prolonged Grief Disorder) is a clinical condition in which grief does not naturally diminish over time. It is characterized by persistent yearning for the deceased, difficulty accepting the loss, intense emotional pain, and significant functional impairment — typically lasting beyond 12 months in adults. Therapy is helpful for both ordinary grief and complicated grief.
There is no universal timeline for grief. Research has moved far beyond the original five-stage model, showing that grief is non-linear, individual, and sometimes lifelong — though it typically becomes less acute over time. For most people, the most intense grief responses ease over 6 to 12 months, though waves of grief can resurface at anniversaries, milestones, or unexpected triggers for years afterward. Therapy is not about ending grief — it is about learning to carry it in a way that allows you to also live fully.
Most people grieve without professional therapy, finding their way through loss with the support of community, family, and time. Therapy is most helpful when grief feels stuck or is worsening; when loss was sudden, traumatic, or traumatic; when you lack adequate social support; when grief is significantly affecting your daily functioning, relationships, or health; or when grief is accompanied by depression, anxiety, or substance use. You do not need to be in crisis to benefit from grief support.
Grief deeply affects relationships. Partners and family members often grieve differently — at different tempos, in different ways, with different needs — which can create distance, conflict, and misunderstanding. One person may need to talk about the loss constantly; another may need distraction. An MFT who specializes in grief can help couples and families navigate these differences and protect their relationships through loss, without requiring everyone to grieve the same way.
A general therapist can offer meaningful support for grief. A grief specialist has additional training in bereavement, complicated grief treatment protocols, and specific loss types (traumatic death, perinatal loss, disenfranchised grief) that benefit from specialized approaches. If your loss was sudden or violent, if you are experiencing complicated or prolonged grief, if you have had multiple losses in a short period, or if you want to work with someone who understands grief deeply — seeking a grief specialist is a worthwhile choice.