In this short video, I explain why some grief stays frozen for years, and how we gently find what it is guarding in our sessions by video.
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Online complicated grief therapy helps you when a loss from months or years ago has not softened with time. It may feel as sharp as the first week, it may have gone numb, or you may have arranged your whole life around not touching it. You work with me alone, by video and in English, in 1-hour sessions with 50 minutes of therapy, wherever you live.
I help you find what is keeping the grief stuck, mourn what has not yet been mourned and let the loss take its place in your life. This page sits under my online grief therapy, part of my wider online psychotherapy.
You can request a free 30-minute call, book a first session, read my client policy or send me a note.
Online complicated grief therapy is for adults whose grief has not eased, even though a long time has passed since the death. For some it is still raw, for others it is buried so deep that they feel almost nothing. You want to understand why it has stayed this way, and to let it move.
Long-held grief can overlap with other difficulties, and some need a different focus. Where one of these lines describes you better, the linked page will help you more.
You can also send me an email
These reviews describe clients’ experiences of working with me. They come from my wider practice and do not all relate to online sessions. Each person’s experience is their own, and a review does not promise a particular outcome.
“In my clinical experience, grief that refuses to move is rarely a sign of loving too much or being too weak to let go. It is usually standing guard over something that has never been allowed out: a furious sentence, a private guilt, a goodbye that never took place. People ask me to help them stop grieving. I would rather help them grieve what they have not yet dared to. Beneath the stuckness I hear ‘If I let this go, will they disappear from me completely?’ and, in the same person, ‘Please leave it alone, I put it away for a reason.’ Often there is a third voice, longing to finally feel it and terrified of being swept away. That ambivalence is not a problem to solve. It is where we start.”
Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist and EFT couples therapist
I am Mark Colclough, MA. I have practised since 2004 and offer online psychotherapy and couples therapy in English.
My training brings together your emotions, your thoughts and your relationships. My deep passion is the moment when what happens between you finally makes sense, to each of you and to each other. I have lived and worked in nine countries, so I know something of life across languages, cultures and borders.
Read about my background, or explore online psychotherapy and online couples therapy.
I meet regularly with experienced psychotherapists to reflect on my work, question my understanding and develop my skills. Supervision is part of the professional care I bring to individual and couples work, including online sessions.
My focus is thoughtful practice, integrity and responsibility.
You are welcome to ask about the kind of support you need.
Tell me where you are based and your time zone. We can then consider whether online sessions together are suitable.
Leah is 44, a hospital pharmacist in Melbourne. Her younger sister died in a car accident in Johannesburg 7 years ago, a few weeks after a bitter argument between them. Leah flew over, arranged the funeral and was back at work within a week. She has barely spoken of it since. She avoids the motorway her sister drove on, drinks more each June and goes silent whenever her daughter asks about her aunt.
I would begin with the argument, because that is where the grief seems to be held. In a first video session, Leah would probably notice how much she has been guarding the last words between them, and that the mourning has been waiting behind them all along.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have given the loss years to settle, and it has stayed exactly where it was.
There is no deadline for seeking help with grief, and no amount of time after which it is too late. A sense that the loss has not moved, or that you have built walls around it, is reason enough. You do not need a diagnosis or a crisis before we meet. In 22 years of practice I have met many people whose grief stopped moving, and I recognise when it is quietly shaping a whole life.
I will help you find what is holding the grief in place and what it still needs from you. These 6 questions may help you recognise your own loss.
If it is, that deserves attention. You may avoid places, music or people linked to them. You may have stopped making plans, or kept life exactly as it was when they died. The loss has become a quiet organiser of your days.
I would look at what has changed since the death and what has stayed frozen. That helps us tell slow but natural mourning from grief that has stopped moving. If the loss still arranges your days, book a session with me.
This is one of the most common knots in stuck grief. Part of you is worn out by the pain. Another part treats the pain as the last bond with the person, so feeling better seems like a second loss.
I do not ask you to choose between relief and loyalty. I help you see what each side protects, and we look for a bond with the person that does not depend on suffering. Many people find they can stay close to the dead without staying in agony.
Some people go back over the medical notes, the last messages or the hours before the death again and again. Each search brings a brief sense of control, then the questions return. You cannot rest until you know, and you cannot know.
Your need to understand is legitimate, and I will not wave it away. What I help you change is the search that has become a way of not feeling. We look at what the questions are protecting you from, often a sorrow or guilt that has had nowhere to go.
Yes, many people do. For weeks you feel nothing, then a date or a song brings it all back with full force, and you cannot function. Afterwards you close the door again, more firmly than before.
I help you slow the swing down and find what sets off each shift. The aim is a middle ground, where you can touch the grief in doses you can bear and then return to your day. I have compassion for both the flooding and the closing, and I will also help you notice when the closing hurts the people around you.
Some people survived the death by switching off. You went back to work, kept busy and never spoke about it. Years later you feel strangely flat, and you wonder whether you loved the person at all.
My view is that numbness is protection, not coldness. It shielded you from a pain that felt too big, and it deserves respect. I help you understand what it is still holding back, so the feeling can return gradually, at a pace you can manage, rather than all at once.
When grief stays for years, it can turn into identity: the one who lost a brother, the family member who never recovered. Your choices, friendships and even your humour may be shaped around it. That reflects how hard you have worked to survive the loss, not something broken in you.
I help you look at what the grief has given you and what it has taken, and who you might be if it loosened. I will challenge you when you hold yourself back, but I will not tell you who to become. The aim is a self with room for the loss, not one built around it.
If your grief has stayed in place for years, you can talk it over on a free call first, or book a session and begin.
You can also send me an email
Tell me briefly what kind of support you are looking for.
Include your country and time zone so we can discuss whether online work together is possible and find a suitable time.
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Seeing why your grief got stuck matters, but the work also has to change how you remember, speak and live with the loss.
Working with me will help you understand what has kept your grief frozen, recognise the patterns that keep it there and make changes that let the loss take its place. Many people have read about prolonged grief and recognised themselves. That is useful, but it seldom unlocks the tears or the anger that have been waiting.
In 22 years of practice I have learned that stuck grief needs an active therapist. I will guide you, name what I notice and gently challenge the ways you keep the loss at arm’s length. The 6 questions below describe where we are heading.
Related reading: Why hasn’t my grief eased after all this time? and Why can’t I grieve when I live so far from home?.
Stuck grief usually has a reason. It may be a conversation that never happened, anger at the person who died, guilt about the end, a family that would not let you mourn, or another loss underneath this one. I help you separate the grief itself from what is blocking it.
I bring structure to something that may have felt shapeless for years. I offer my reading, point to where the grief seems to be held and challenge explanations that keep it closed. Whenever you are ready, book a session with me and we begin.
Avoidance has signals: changing the subject, reaching for your phone, feeling a sudden urge to tidy or leave. Once you see them, you can choose whether to turn towards the grief for a moment instead.
In our sessions I help you slow these moments down and see what you are steering away from. Seeing it is the beginning. We practise staying with the feeling a little longer each time, so you can do it at home on an ordinary evening, not only with me.
Staying steady does not mean keeping the feeling down. It means staying present enough to feel it, knowing where you are and that it will pass. Grief that has been held for years can arrive with great force, and that is not dangerous in itself.
I help you notice the first signs of a wave and what your body does to resist it. We find small ways to stay grounded while the feeling moves. I will ask you to practise these between sessions, because old grief often surfaces at night or on the anniversary.
Speaking about a long-held loss begins with finding out what you actually feel, which may surprise you. Years of silence can make the words feel stuck, or make it seem too late to raise the subject with family.
I help you find language that is honest and in proportion, perhaps “I never really talked about her death, and I would like to now.” I will challenge you when you keep the silence to protect others, and also when you expect them to bring it up first. Sometimes we write a letter to the person who died.
Choices about belongings, rituals, a grave far away or a room left untouched become clearer once you separate guilt and fear of forgetting from what you genuinely want. Keeping everything and clearing everything can both be ways of avoiding the grief.
I help you look at your options and what each would mean to you. You will hear my honest view, and I will name it when guilt is deciding. The choice remains yours, and it can be made in small steps.
Once the grief begins to move, the change has to show in your days: being able to visit the places you avoided, to mention them easily, to enjoy something without guilt. You may need new rituals, different ways of marking the anniversary or honest conversations you have postponed for years.
I help you decide what to keep and what to change. Your love for the person is not the problem, and it stays. The aim is to carry the loss with you, rather than living inside it.
You can also send me an email
You do not need to have cried, or to know why it has stayed stuck. We begin where the grief is now.
When you begin, I listen carefully to the story of the loss and the years since, help you name what feels most stuck and give our work a clear direction. It is fine if you have never spoken about it before.
This is a focused part of my online psychotherapy, structured individual work on your inner life and relationships. If the unresolved loss is straining your relationship and your partner is willing to join, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. Long-held grief usually needs a steady stretch of work, and a therapy bundle offers real savings and a plan agreed from the start.
In the first session I ask who you lost, when and how, what the years since have been like and what you hope will change. You can go as slowly as you need, and I will not push you into feelings you are not ready for.
Before we finish, I share my first sense of what may be holding the grief and suggest where to begin. You then decide whether this approach feels right. If you would like to talk to me beforehand, book a free 30-minute call.
Individual work is right when the stuck grief lives in you: your memories, your guilt or anger, your relationship with the person who died. It also gives you privacy to say things you could never say in front of family.
With me you get continuity, a steady pace and honest challenge from week to week. If the loss turns out to be tied to wider questions about your life, online psychotherapy describes my individual work more broadly.
Couples therapy fits better when the unresolved loss is shaping the relationship itself. That may be a child you lost together, or your withdrawal every anniversary leaving your partner shut out year after year.
In couples sessions I help you both see the cycle the grief creates, share what each of you has carried and find ways to mourn side by side. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing for a grief you both carry.
The pace depends on how much feeling is waiting to come through, how stable your life is now and how much support you have between sessions.
I usually recommend weekly sessions at first, because grief that has been held back for years needs steady containment once it starts to move. I will say so if longer gaps leave you exposed, and when the work can safely become less frequent.
A bundle makes sense when you know the work will take a number of sessions. Stuck grief often tempts you to stop just as it begins to move. A planned course helps you stay with it through that point.
Each session costs less inside a bundle, and the plan is fixed before we begin. I will tell you honestly what scope seems likely. Compare the bundle sizes on therapy discounts and bundles.
The work has done its job when you can think of the person without being flooded or numb, when you no longer avoid what reminds you of them and when the anniversary is sad rather than devastating.
I review progress openly and will not keep you in therapy longer than helps. Sessions can space out, pause or end. If you return after another loss, that is a new chapter, not proof that the earlier work failed.
Not sure this is the right starting point? Here is how online complicated grief therapy sits beside the options people with long-held grief most often weigh up.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online complicated grief therapy (this page) | A death from some time ago still feels raw, frozen or impossible to approach. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online grief therapy | The loss is recent and you need a place to mourn it. | Weekly or fortnightly video sessions |
| Online anticipatory grief therapy | You are losing someone who is still alive. | Video sessions fitted around care and travel |
| Online trauma therapy | Images of how they died return with terror, more than sorrow. | Carefully paced 1-hour video sessions |
Online complicated grief therapy with me is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for adults whose grief has stayed raw, frozen or avoided long after a death. It helps you find what is keeping the grief stuck and mourn what has not yet been mourned.
I work in depth, with feelings, memories, the body and the relationship with the person who died. I do not diagnose. The page belongs under my online grief therapy.
Come when the grief has not changed for a long time, when you avoid everything connected to the person, or when you feel nothing and suspect that is not the whole story. Your own sense that something has not moved is enough.
From 22 years of practice, I look at whether the grief has softened at all, what it stops you doing and how the anniversaries go. When the loss is still steering your life, it deserves attention.
Yes. Grief does not expire, and it can begin to move decades later. How much shifts, and how fast, I cannot promise, and I offer no shortcuts.
In my clinical experience, people are often surprised how alive the feelings still are once we find the right door. I would focus with you on what has never been said or felt, and on letting it be said and felt now, in a safe place.
I do not diagnose, and you do not need a label to come. What matters is what the grief is doing to your life and what you want to change.
Some people find a name helpful, and that is fine. My focus is on understanding your particular loss: why it has stayed, what it is guarding and what it needs from you now.
Because the grief has never had a safe middle place. When it comes, it floods. When it is too much, you shut it away. Both are ways of surviving a loss that felt too big.
I help you notice when each starts and what it protects. Then we practise meeting the grief in smaller doses, so you can feel it without being overwhelmed and close it without losing it.
We start with the loss and the years since: what happened, how you coped and what has stayed the same. By the end I share my first impression of what may be holding the grief and where we could start.
You do not need to prepare, and you do not need to cry. Many people say little at first. Book a first session, or start with a free 30-minute call to ask me anything.
Plan for a course of weekly sessions over several months. Grief that has been held for years tends to move in stages, with breakthroughs followed by quieter digesting. If the loss is tangled with earlier losses, it can take longer.
From 22 years of practice, I prefer a clear first stretch with honest reviews. Together we judge, each time, whether to carry on, slow the rhythm or bring the work to a close.
For most people, yes. Being in your own home can make it easier to let feelings come, and you can bring a photograph or an object to the screen. Video also lets you keep the same therapist if you live far from where the person died.
You need a private room where you can cry without being overheard, headphones and a stable connection. Plan a little quiet time after each session. Any doubts about doing this on screen can be raised on a free call.
Complicated grief work is individual psychotherapy, in 1-hour online sessions of which 50 minutes are therapy. Current fees in US dollars sit on my prices page.
When you expect a longer course, a therapy bundle saves you 10 per cent and gives you a structured plan. The options are set out under therapy discounts and bundles.
Book your first session, or request a free 30-minute call if you would like to talk first. Telling me who you lost, and roughly when, is enough to start.
If no time fits, or an anniversary has just knocked you off your feet, get in touch directly. I hold some room for acute cases, usually a time within days, and acute online psychotherapy explains that option. Choose a time, and we start with the grief as it is today.
You can also send me an email
I want therapy to help you understand your experience and make choices you can use in everyday life. We pay attention to feelings, needs and the responses that happen before you have time to think.
Our online room should offer enough trust and honesty to explore what is difficult. I bring attention and professional judgement. You bring your experience, questions and the right to say when something does not fit.
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