Grief & IADC
Support for the pain of loss, the traumatic edges of grief, and the relationship that continues.
Grief is not something to get over
Losing someone you love changes the shape of your life. Grief is not a problem to solve, a series of stages to complete, or evidence that you are not healing quickly enough.
Therapy cannot undo the loss, and its purpose is not to help you sever the relationship and “move on.” It can help with the parts of grief that add suffering to the pain already present—the traumatic memories, guilt, anger, panic, unanswered questions, and relentless if onlys. EMDR can be especially helpful when the circumstances surrounding a death continue to feel present in your mind and body.
It can also make room for continuing bonds: the understanding that a relationship does not simply disappear when someone dies. Dreams, signs, sensed presence, inner conversations, and other experiences of connection are welcome here. You do not have to edit those experiences into something more conventionally acceptable before talking about them with me.
Continuing bonds and IADC
IADC—Induced After-Death Communication—is a structured therapeutic process that grew out of EMDR. It was developed by psychologist Allan Botkin while working with veterans whose grief and trauma had not responded fully to other treatment.
The process is intended to soften the intense sense of separation that can accompany a death. People may experience connection in different ways: a sensed presence, an image, an inner communication, a shift in understanding, or simply a deep feeling of peace. IADC is not mediumship, and I am not communicating with your loved one on your behalf. The experience, if one occurs, is your own.
Your understanding remains your own.
You do not have to decide in advance whether you understand the experience psychologically, spiritually, energetically, or as contact with a nonphysical reality. Curiosity is enough.
What working together looks like
Grief Therapy
Grief therapy may include conversation, EMDR to process the traumatic aspects of a loss, continuing-bonds work, or IADC when it feels appropriate and you are interested.
IADC
IADC can be used following the death of a person or beloved animal. It is generally scheduled as two 90-minute sessions when no additional grief work or EMDR is needed or desired.
Timing and readiness
IADC is generally not recommended within the first six months after a death. This is not a hard-and-fast rule, but the intensity of very early grief can make it more difficult to move through the traumatic charge and access a quieter sense of connection.
When a death has been especially traumatic, two sessions may not be enough. Additional EMDR work is often needed before moving into IADC, and we will not rush the process to make it fit a predetermined schedule.
No particular experience can be guaranteed, but the work can still be meaningful even when it unfolds differently from what someone expected.
Death changes the relationship. It does not end the love.