Jul 21, 2021Home EnthusiastI half woke up this morning and as I lay thinking about this and that it came to me that I am a Home Enthusiast. By which I mean, I am enthusiastic about being at home. There are other words that capture this predilection for sheltering in place, but they…3 min read3 min read
Published in Invisible Illness·Feb 13, 2021For The Grieving, It’s Not An Entirely New YearThanks to the pandemic, Death has achieved a kind of celebrity — It’s a new year, and despite ourselves, many of us are hopeful that it will be an improvement over the last one. So far the fulfillment of that hope remains in doubt. …Mental Health3 min readMental Health3 min read
Published in Invisible Illness·Oct 7, 2020Does Grief Ever End?Would I say to someone with chronic pain: ‘you’ll learn to live with it?’ No. — This is at once an impossible question to answer, and the only question that really matters when you are the one who is grieving. That’s how it is with pain. When we are in pain, pain is all that we can think about. So as a grief therapist, I’m often…Mental Health6 min readMental Health6 min read
Published in Invisible Illness·Sep 1, 2020Wherever We Go, We Carry Our Past With UsThe (unwelcome) persistence of memory — “The tectonic layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive.” — The Reader, Bernhard Schlink Rewarding as it…Mental Health6 min readMental Health6 min read
Published in Invisible Illness·Aug 11, 2020Grief, Fear, And The Holding SpaceIn talking to my colleagues who provide support to people grieving the death of a loved one, I have found that in almost every case, they have had at least one experience of profound, life altering loss. In my case it was the loss of my mother, when she was…Grief4 min readGrief4 min read
Jun 30, 2020Giving grief its dueA Response to the cover story on Grief, Psychology Today, August 2020 “If, as a culture, we don’t bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad…Grief3 min readGrief3 min read
Jun 23, 2020Still lifeI’ve been hearing a lot from people lately about their dreams, and (no surprise) they tend toward the nightmarish. Sleep is meant to be restorative. But wherever we go, our minds go with us, and the mind, in sleep, is unrestrained. Whatever is on our mind is still there when…3 min read3 min read
Jun 13, 2020When grief is everywhere, who gets to grieve?My work is about talking to people who are grieving, and people who are grieving get told a lot of things that are not helpful. Some of the things people say to them are of course well meaning, or at least, benign in their intent. “She’s in a better place”…Grief And Loss5 min readGrief And Loss5 min read
Jun 1, 2020“I just want to be in control of my emotions.”“I just want to be in control of my emotions.” In my online sessions with clients, and in conversations with friends, I’ve been hearing this a lot lately, and I get it. Feelings hurt, they’re uncomfortable, they’re distracting. …Controlling Emotions3 min readControlling Emotions3 min read
