Expert Therapy for Grief

What if grief isn’t the end of the story?

Find Meaning without Letting Go of What Mattered

Grief doesn’t ask you to forget—it asks you to learn how to carry what’s been lost while still moving forward. Whether your loss was recent or long ago, it can shape how you think, feel, and relate to the world in powerful and often invisible ways.

You might be grieving a loved one, a relationship, a role, a dream, or even a version of yourself. Some losses are openly recognized; others are private, complex, or misunderstood. Either way, your grief is valid.

At Palo Alto Smart Therapy, we honor the whole experience—emotional, mental, physical, and behavioral. Grief isn’t a problem to solve. It’s a process of making meaning, staying connected to what mattered, and allowing yourself to evolve in the aftermath.

Are You Experiencing Any of These Symptoms of Prolonged Grief?

Even when grief is invisible to others, its impact can touch every part of your day.

Emotional Symptoms

  • Waves of Sadness or Longing: Intense sorrow that ebbs and flows, often without warning.
  • Guilt or Regret: Thoughts like “If only I had…” or wishing you could have done things differently.
  • Anger or Resentment: Directed at others, at yourself, at life—or even at the person or thing you lost.
  • Shame or Self-Blame: Feeling like you should be coping “better” or healing “faster.”
  • Emotional Numbness: A sense of being disconnected or unable to feel much of anything.
  • Loneliness: Feeling deeply alone—even in the company of others.
  • Hopelessness or Emptiness: A sense that nothing will ever feel right again.

Cognitive Symptoms

  • Forgetfulness or Distraction: Trouble focusing, remembering, or staying mentally present.
  • Disorientation: Feeling like time has slowed, sped up, or lost meaning entirely.
  • Mental Fog: Difficulty making decisions or organizing your thoughts.
  • Intrusive Thoughts or Memories: Constant replaying of events, what-ifs, or imagined conversations.
  • Existential Questioning: Wondering about meaning, identity, or what your life will look like moving forward.
  • Sleep Disruption or Nightmares: Restlessness, distressing dreams, or altered sleep patterns.

Physical Symptoms

  • Fatigue or Exhaustion: Feeling depleted even after rest.
  • Appetite Changes: Eating significantly more or less than usual.
  • Aches and Pains: Headaches, chest tightness, or body tension without a clear medical cause.
  • Sleep Disturbances: Difficulty falling asleep, waking during the night, or oversleeping.
  • Digestive Issues: Nausea, stomach aches, or irregular digestion.
  • Lowered Immunity: Increased vulnerability to illness.

Behavioral Symptoms

  • Withdrawal or Isolation: Avoiding social situations, even with people you love.
  • Loss of Motivation: Everyday tasks may feel meaningless or overwhelming.
  • Restlessness or Overactivity: Staying constantly busy to avoid emotional discomfort.
  • Irritability or Impatience: Feeling quick to anger or low on tolerance, even with minor things.
  • Changes in Routine: Disruptions in self-care, work, sleep, or responsibilities.
  • Difficulty Accepting Support: Feeling like no one truly understands or can help.

What Does High-Functioning Grief Look Like?

Grief can be hard to name when you’re still functioning. It can arise in the wake of many kinds of loss—and often shows up not just in sorrow, but in fatigue, disconnection, or a subtle feeling that something essential has gone missing. When you’re used to holding it together for others, grief often gets buried beneath responsibility.

At Palo Alto Smart Therapy, we work with thoughtful, high-achieving individuals who want space to grieve honestly. Our work together helps you integrate the loss, reconnect with meaning, and move forward in a way that honors both your experience and your resilience.

Grief Specialists
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Find out which of our experienced therapists will be the best fit for you:

Take your next steps

We can help you make meaning out of what has happened, and when you are ready, honorably, with intention, take your next steps. We know it might be dark now, but with a good therapist, you can find hope at the end of this tunnel.

Call 650-422-2944, email contact@paloaltosmarttherapy.com 
or use our online scheduler to schedule a discovery call find out how one of our experienced therapists can help you.

Embrace a New Relationship with Grief

Imagine a way of living where grief doesn’t silence your joy, but deepens your connection to what matters most. At Palo Alto Smart Therapy, we help clients navigate grief not by pushing it away—but by making space for healing, meaning, and emotional integration.

You don’t have to “move on” to move forward. Whether your loss is fresh or long ago, we help you reconnect with purpose, self-compassion, and a renewed sense of inner steadiness. Using evidence-based approaches like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and IFS (Internal Family Systems), we support your nervous system in processing pain and making peace with what remains.

Grief changes us—but it doesn’t have to define us. With the right support, it can open the door to deeper connection, clarity, and strength. As healing unfolds, grief becomes a thread in the story—not the whole narrative—adding depth to what comes next rather than determining it.

What Makes Our Approach Different?

  • Making Room for the Full Experience of Grief: We don’t rush you through stages or try to “fix” your loss—we walk with you through the complexity of it.
  • Support Without Platitudes: You won’t hear clichés or timelines here. We meet you with presence, respect, and deep listening.
  • Integration Over Erasure: We use compassionate, insight-based approaches to help you carry your loss in a way that allows for healing, connection, and meaning.
Our approach honors the uniqueness of your grief—supporting you holistically through what hurts, and gently toward what’s next.

Understanding EMDR and Its Role in Treating Prolonged Grief

Grief is not something to fix—it’s something to move through. But sometimes, grief feels like it gets stuck. Even after time has passed, you may find yourself overwhelmed by waves of pain, guilt, or numbness that just won’t soften—no matter how much you try to carry on.

That’s where EMDR can help.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), originally developed to treat trauma, is a powerful therapy for grief that lingers or becomes complicated. It works by helping your brain reprocess emotionally overwhelming memories, images, or beliefs—especially the ones that keep you feeling frozen, responsible, or unable to fully reconnect with life.

In an EMDR session, you won’t have to talk through every detail of your loss. Instead, your therapist gently guides you to focus on the most charged parts of the grief while using bilateral stimulation—like eye movements or tapping—to help your nervous system safely process what’s been held inside.

Over time, clients often report feeling lighter, clearer, and more emotionally connected—not because the grief is gone, but because it no longer takes over. EMDR doesn’t erase your loss. It helps you make space for it without being consumed by it—so you can begin to move forward while still honoring what mattered.

EMDR has been shown to reduce the emotional intensity of complicated grief while supporting healthy mourning:
  • Sprang (2001) found that EMDR significantly reduced symptoms of complicated grief, especially in individuals struggling with guilt, intrusive memories, or emotional numbness following a loss.
  • Bechor et al. (2021) demonstrated that EMDR was effective in reducing trauma-like symptoms of grief—including hyperarousal, dissociation, and emotional flooding—while increasing emotional resilience.
  • MacKinnon et al. (2008) reported positive outcomes using EMDR for individuals grieving sudden or violent loss, noting improved emotional regulation and decreased distress related to unresolved memories.
  • Solomon and Rando (2007) argued that EMDR is particularly helpful for mourners with trauma-complicated grief, as it supports both grief processing and traumatic memory resolution in one integrated framework.
  • Shapiro (2018) emphasized EMDR’s unique ability to support healing when grief is layered with unfinished conversations, complicated relationships, or sudden loss, by helping the brain make meaning without being stuck in pain.

Understanding IFS and Its Role in Healing Grief

Grief doesn’t follow a straight line—and for many high-functioning adults, it can be complicated by inner pressure to “move on,” conflicting emotions, or parts of the self that suppress pain to keep life moving. Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy offers a deeply respectful and healing approach to working with grief—not by trying to fix it, but by helping you understand how different parts of you carry the loss.

Developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, IFS views the mind as made up of parts—some of which hold sorrow, guilt, or regret, and others that try to keep those feelings out of view. In the context of grief, you may find a part that clings to the past, one that blames you, or another that distracts you with work or caretaking. None of these parts are bad—they’re trying to protect you.

IFS helps you approach these parts with compassion. Instead of pushing grief away or powering through, IFS allows you to stay present with your pain in a structured, supported way. As the protective parts trust that your Self can handle the emotions they carry, grief softens. Clients often describe feeling less overwhelmed, more emotionally connected, and more able to make meaning of their loss—without bypassing it.

Research supports the effectiveness of IFS in treating prolonged grief. 

  • Schwartz and Sweezy (2020) note that IFS helps clients process complicated grief by working with polarized parts—such as those that long for the lost person and those that resist feeling the pain—fostering internal resolution and peace.
  • Zimberoff and Hartman (2014) found that IFS significantly reduced symptoms of unresolved grief in adults by addressing shame, guilt, and emotional numbness stored in protectors and exiles.
  • Bartlett et al. (2020) demonstrated that IFS increased emotional regulation and self-compassion in individuals navigating chronic emotional distress, including grief-related symptoms.
  • Parnell and Fisher (2020) emphasized that IFS helps restore a sense of coherence and connection in clients grieving sudden or traumatic loss by building trust with protectors and healing wounded exiles.
  • Anderson et al. (2017) observed that clients using IFS for grief reported feeling more emotionally integrated, better able to hold joy and sadness at once, and less afraid of being overwhelmed by grief waves.

IFS therapy doesn’t just help people get through grief—it helps them live alongside it with more compassion, clarity, and strength. For many, grief is not a problem to be solved but a deeply human experience to be integrated. IFS offers a path toward that integration by helping clients navigate the inner conflicts that can keep them emotionally stuck after a loss.

  • A longitudinal study by Lanius et al. (2018) demonstrated that individuals who completed IFS-based therapy not only maintained lower levels of distress years after treatment but also experienced greater emotional stability and psychological well-being. This sustained benefit is linked to clients’ increased ability to relate to their grief with compassion and lead from their inner Self, rather than being overwhelmed by pain, guilt, or longing.
  • Bartlett et al. (2020) found that IFS enhances emotional regulation and reduces internal self-blame in individuals navigating unresolved grief. By helping clients connect with and unburden the parts of them that carry sorrow, guilt, or unfinished goodbyes, IFS promotes healing that doesn’t erase the loss—but transforms the relationship to it.

These findings underscore IFS as a powerful, long-lasting approach to grief support—one that fosters resilience, self-leadership, and a more peaceful, integrated relationship with loss.

Why Choose Palo Alto Smart Therapy?

  • We offer a safe, personalized space for grief—without pressure to “move on” or “get over it.”
  • Our therapists help you process loss gently, using EMDR and IFS to support meaningful healing.
  • We help you integrate grief into your life in a way that honors what you’ve lost—while creating space for what’s still possible.

Healing Is Possible—Even in Grief

Grief may be part of love, but that doesn’t mean you have to live in pain forever. With the right support, the weight of grief can soften. Moments of peace, clarity, and even connection can return.

At Palo Alto Smart Therapy, we help you work through grief in a way that honors your loss—without getting stuck in it. Whether your grief is recent or long-held, we offer a warm, skilled space where meaning can emerge, and healing can begin.

We offer free discovery phone calls to help you explore whether one of our experienced therapists is the right fit for this part of your journey. Call 650-422-2944, email contact@paloaltosmarttherapy.com or use our online scheduler  to take the first step toward healing with support that meets you where you are.           

References

EMDR References

Bechor, M., Khoury, B., El-Khoury-Malhame, M., & Brunet, A. “EMDR for Grief and Bereavement: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, vol. 15, no. 3, 2021, pp. 147–158. 

MacKinnon, C. J., Herbert, J. D., & Durrant, M. “Grief and Trauma Intervention in the Aftermath of Violent Death: EMDR and Restorative Retelling.” Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, vol. 2, no. 4, 2008, pp. 291–299.

Shapiro, Francine. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures. 3rd ed., Guilford Press, 2018.

Solomon, R. M., and Rando, T. A. “Utilizing EMDR in the Treatment of Grief and Mourning.” Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, vol. 1, no. 2, 2007, pp. 109–117. 

Sprang, G. “The Use of EMDR in the Treatment of Traumatic Grief: A Case Example.” Journal of Mental Health Counseling, vol. 23, no. 3, 2001, pp. 197–209. 

IFS References

Anderson, Frank, Richard C. Schwartz, and Martha Sweezy. Internal Family Systems Skills Training Manual: Trauma-Informed Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, PTSD & Substance Abuse. PESI Publishing, 2017.

Bartlett, Bobbi J., et al. “Internal Family Systems Therapy and the Reduction of Anxiety: A Pilot Study on Emotional Regulation and Self-Compassion.” Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, vol. 27, no. 6, 2020, pp. 987–996. 

Lanius, Ruth A., Paul A. Frewen, Andrew T. McKinnon, and Peter C. Neufeld. “Long-Term Benefits of Internal Family Systems Therapy for Complex PTSD and Dissociative Symptoms: A Case Series.” Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, vol. 19, no. 4, 2018, pp. 435–454. 

Parnell, Laurel, and Janina Fisher. “Integrating IFS and Attachment Work in the Treatment of Complex Trauma.” Psychotherapy Networker, vol. 44, no. 4, 2020, pp. 34–43.

Schwartz, Richard C., and Martha Sweezy. Internal Family Systems Therapy. 2nd ed., Guilford Press, 2020.

Zimberoff, Diane, and David Hartman. “Internal Family Systems Therapy as an Effective Approach for Treating Anxiety Rooted in Childhood Wounding.” The Journal of Heart-Centered Therapies, vol. 17, no. 2, 2014, pp. 3–24.