Therapy comes in flavors, and the alphabet soup on therapists' websites is genuinely confusing on a good day, let alone now. Plain words, no endorsement, no jargon:
The kinds you'll actually encounter
- GRIEF COUNSELLING - talking, with someone trained in loss specifically. No technique to learn; the room and the witness are the method. The usual starting place
- CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) - practical, structured, good when grief has brought anxiety, insomnia, or looping thoughts along with it
- ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) - less about disputing thoughts, more about carrying them while still living toward what matters. Suits the "I don't want to fix it, I want to live with it" instinct
- EMDR and trauma therapies - for when the death itself was traumatic (sudden, violent, witnessed) and the memory intrudes rather than visits
- PROLONGED-GRIEF THERAPY - newer, specific work for grief that stays at full intensity for years and blocks all living. If that's you, this exists and works; ask for it by name
How to tell if it's helping
- Not: feeling great after sessions (good ones often ache)
- Yes: feeling met; saying things out loud you couldn't elsewhere; a slow sense of more room to breathe over weeks
- A good therapist welcomes "is this working?" as a question. One who bristles at it has answered it
None of this is medical advice - it's a translation. The starting-therapy piece next door covers the finding and the first session.