Grief
Loss takes many forms. The death of someone close is the most immediate kind, but grief also accompanies endings that carry no death certificate: the end of a significant relationship, the loss of a version of your life you had expected, estrangement from family, miscarriage and pregnancy loss, or the gradual recognition that a parent or caregiver was never able to give you what you needed. All of these can produce grief that is real, disorienting, and deserving of attention.
Grief is not linear and it does not follow a schedule. It can arrive in waves months or years after a loss, surface unexpectedly in the middle of ordinary life, or sit quietly underneath daily functioning without ever being fully named. Some people move through it gradually. Others find it becomes stuck, persisting or intensifying over time in ways that begin to affect relationships, work, and a basic sense of being present in their own life.
When grief becomes complicated
All grief is painful. Complicated grief is something more specific: a state in which the loss continues to dominate in ways that don’t shift over time, or where the responses to loss intensify rather than ease. You might find it difficult to accept that the death has happened, feel unable to engage with life in any sustained way, or notice that the grief has become entangled with guilt, anger, or a persistent sense of unreality.
Some losses carry particular risk of becoming complicated. These include:
- Deaths that were sudden, unexpected, or traumatic, including suicide, homicide, or accident
- Losses where there was no opportunity to say goodbye or to grieve openly
- The death of a child
- Losses that follow a previous bereavement closely
- Deaths accompanied by significant guilt or unresolved conflict in the relationship
- Situations where normal mourning rituals were disrupted or unavailable
- Bereavement that occurs alongside other major life stressors
Complicated grief is not a sign of weakness or emotional disorder. It often reflects the particular nature of the loss, the relationship, or the circumstances surrounding the death, and it responds well to careful, unhurried therapeutic support.
Bereavement by suicide
Losing someone to suicide brings its own particular grief. Alongside the loss itself, there is often profound shock, guilt, unanswerable questions, and a sense of stigma that can make it harder to talk about openly. The grief can feel entangled in ways that ordinary bereavement support doesn’t always meet. I have specialist training in supporting people bereaved by suicide and am experienced in working with the specific dimensions this kind of loss involves.
How I work with grief
My approach to grief is relational and psychodynamic. I am interested not only in the loss itself but in your inner world, your memories and relationship with the person who died, the grief that may have been present before this loss, and the ways the past shapes how you experience the present.
Grief doesn’t need to be resolved on a timetable. Therapy offers a space where the full weight of a loss can be brought without managing it for anyone else’s comfort, where grief that has become stuck can receive careful attention, and where you don’t have to carry it alone.
Resources
- It’s OK That You’re Not OK — Megan Devine
- The Year of Magical Thinking — Joan Didion
- Grief Works — Julia Samuel
- Griefcast — podcast with Cariad Lloyd
- Cruse Bereavement Support: cruse.org.uk
- Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide: uksobs.org
References
Shear, M. K. (2012). Grief and mourning gone awry: Pathway and course of complicated grief. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 14(2), 119–128.
Simon, N. M. (2013). Treating complicated grief. JAMA, 310(4), 416–423.
Samantha Merry is a BACP Senior Accredited Psychotherapist in private practice in Bromley, South East London, and a doctoral researcher at the University of Chester. She has specialist training in bereavement by suicide.