In this short video, I explain why grief keeps no timetable, and what we do together by video when the loss feels too big to carry alone.
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Online grief therapy helps you mourn someone you have lost when the grief is heavier, lonelier or stranger than you expected. The person may be a parent, partner, sibling, child or friend, and the death may be recent or some time back. We meet by video, one to one and in English, in 1-hour sessions with 50 minutes of therapy, wherever you are living.
I give the loss room, help you understand what your grief holds and support you as your life slowly reshapes around it. This is the grief branch of my online psychotherapy. When someone is still alive but slipping away, see online anticipatory grief therapy. When grief has stayed stuck for years, see online complicated grief therapy.
You can reserve a free 30-minute call, book a first session, read my client policy or contact me.
Online grief therapy is for adults, anywhere in the world, who have lost someone close and are finding the grief harder to carry than they expected. Perhaps the funeral is over, everyone has gone home and the silence has set in. You want a calm place to mourn properly, with someone who will not rush you.
Grief touches many parts of a life, and some situations need a more particular kind of help. If one of these fits your loss more closely, the linked page was written for it.
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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.
“If I look back over the last 5 months of practice, the grieving people I met almost all began with an apology: it has been so long, I should be coping by now. I disagree with that sentence every time. Grief is not a failure to recover. It is love that has lost its address. Beneath the apology I hear one voice asking ‘Will everyone forget them, and then forget me?’ and another saying ‘Please let me get through this on my own.’ Quite often the same person also says ‘Stay close to me’ and then cannot bear to be held. None of this needs fixing. It needs a place where the loss can be spoken about for as long as it takes.”
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.
Charlotte is 46, a British teacher who has lived in Dubai for 11 years. Her mother died in Bristol in February after a short illness. Charlotte flew back, organised the funeral with her brother and was in her classroom 9 days later. It is now October. Her brother rarely calls, her husband has stopped asking, and she finds herself sitting in the school car park after lessons, unable to drive home. She tells herself she should be over it.
I would begin with the car park, the place where her grief finally gets a moment alone. In our first video session, Charlotte would probably notice how little room she has given the loss, and that she has been grieving in exile, twice over.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have kept going after the death, and the loss is still waiting for you every evening.
There is no right moment and no required reason to seek help with grief. A sense that the loss is heavier than you can carry, or that you have nowhere to put it, is reason enough. You do not need to be months past the death, or unable to function, before we meet. In 22 years of practice I have sat with grief in many forms, and I can tell when it is moving naturally and when it has become stuck or isolated.
I will help you see what your grief is made of, what makes it harder to carry and what you need. The 6 questions below may help you decide whether to reach out.
If it is, that deserves attention. Grief is physically tiring. You wake already exhausted, forget why you walked into a room and find that a short email takes an hour. Friends notice you seem distracted, and you notice you have stopped caring about things you used to love.
I would look at how your grief moves through the week and whether it is easing, staying flat or becoming heavier. That tells us whether this is the natural weight of mourning or something that needs more help. If this sounds like you, book a session with me and we can make room for it.
Both wishes belong to grief. Holding on keeps the person close: their voice, their jumper, their number still in your phone. Letting the pain go would make life bearable again. Many people fear that easing the pain will mean losing the person, so they keep the hurt alive as a form of loyalty.
I do not ask you to choose between them. I help you see what each wish protects, so the bond with the person can continue in a form that does not require you to suffer to keep it.
Grief can make other people’s ordinary lives feel like a betrayal. When friends stop mentioning the name, or a sibling seems fine, you feel abandoned twice. You check whether anyone remembers the anniversary and feel hurt when they do not.
Your need for others to remember is legitimate, and I will not dismiss it. I help you calm the fear that the person, and you with them, will be forgotten. We find direct ways to ask for the remembering you need, instead of waiting quietly and feeling let down.
Often, yes. You want someone to sit with you, and when they put an arm around you, it feels unbearable. You ring a friend and then hang up quickly. Comfort feels essential and too much at once, and you confuse yourself as well as the people trying to help.
I help you slow this down and notice the moment comfort tips into overwhelm. Often it is when someone else’s kindness touches the loss too directly. I have compassion for that reaction, and I will also help you tell the people close to you what kind of support you can actually take in.
Some people grieve by working harder, sorting the estate, organising everyone else and never sitting still. When someone asks how you are, you answer with logistics. It feels like strength, and in part it is.
My view is that this busyness protects you from a flood you fear will not stop, and it deserves respect. I help you find out what it is keeping away, so you can let in a little of the grief at a time, at a pace you can manage, rather than all at once in the middle of a meeting.
A death can take away a role as well as a person: daughter, partner, the one who rang every Sunday. Your sense of self may have been bound up with them more than you realised, and the world can suddenly feel unfamiliar. That is part of mourning, not a sign that something in you is broken.
I help you look at what the relationship gave you, what you still carry from it and who you are becoming now. I will not hurry you to a new identity. The aim is a life that has room for the loss and for you.
If you recognised your grief in these questions, choose a free call to talk first, or book a session if you are ready to start.
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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.
You do not need to explain your whole story in your first message.
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Understanding your grief helps, but mourning also has to change how you live, rest and reach for other people.
Grief therapy with me will help you understand what your mourning holds, notice what makes it harder and live in a way that has room for the loss. Knowing about the phases of grief can be comforting, but grief rarely follows them, and knowledge alone does not make the evenings easier.
In 22 years of practice I have learned that grieving people need more than a listener. I will be present with the loss, tell you what I notice and gently challenge whatever keeps you from mourning. These 6 questions show what we work towards.
Related reading: Why is my grief so different from what I expected? and Why can’t I grieve when I live so far from home?.
Grief is rarely only sadness. It can hold guilt about the last conversation, anger at how the death was handled, relief that suffering ended and old feelings about the relationship itself. I help you separate these strands so each can be felt and understood.
I bring structure to what can feel shapeless. I offer my reading of what is happening, name what needs attention and challenge the rules that say you should be further along. Whenever you are ready, book a session with me and we can begin.
Waves of grief often have warnings: a song in a shop, a smell, a date coming up, a tightness in your throat. Learning to notice them lets you choose where to be when the wave arrives, instead of being caught in a meeting or on a train.
Together we map your particular triggers and what each one stirs. Noticing alone is not enough. We practise ways of meeting a wave, such as stepping away or letting it come for 10 minutes, until you can use them without me there.
Staying steady does not mean holding back tears or appearing composed. It means staying present enough to feel the grief without being lost in it, and knowing the wave will pass.
I help you notice earlier when your body begins to brace against the sorrow and what it is trying to protect you from. We find small ways to ground yourself that suit you. I will ask you to practise them between sessions, because grief often arrives at 3 in the morning, not during our session.
Telling people what you need starts with knowing it yourself, and grief makes that hard. You may say you are fine to spare others discomfort, or feel resentful when they fail to guess.
I help you find simple, honest words, such as “Please say their name, I like hearing it” or “I need you to just sit with me.” I will challenge you when you hide your grief to protect others, and also when you expect them to know without being told. We often prepare a call to family abroad.
After a death, decisions pile up: the house, the belongings, whether to move closer to family. Grief can push you to settle everything at once or leave it all untouched. Clearer choices come from separating what must be decided now from what can wait.
I help you look at your options and what each one asks of you. You will hear my honest view, and I will name it when guilt or fear seems to be deciding. The choice stays with you, and many decisions can wait longer than people think.
Grief does not end with forgetting. Over time the loss finds a place in your life rather than filling all of it. That may mean new rituals, a different rhythm to the year, new relationships or a changed sense of what matters.
I help you decide what to keep from the life you shared and what to let change. Your love for the person stays. The aim is not to move on from them, but to live fully again while they remain part of you.
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You do not need to tell the whole story or know what you feel. We start with where the loss is today.
When you begin, I listen carefully, let you tell me about the person and the loss, and give our work a gentle but clear direction. You do not need to arrive composed or with the right words.
Grief therapy is one focused strand of my online psychotherapy, structured individual work on your inner life and relationships. If a shared loss, such as a child’s death, is straining your relationship and your partner is willing, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. If you expect a longer stretch of mourning work, a therapy bundle offers real savings and the reassurance of an agreed plan.
In the first session I ask about the person you lost, how they died, what has been hardest since and what you hope our sessions can give you. You can speak about them as much as you need. Many people find this alone a relief.
Before we finish, I offer my first understanding of your grief and suggest how we might work. You then decide whether this feels right. If you would like to speak to me first, book a free 30-minute call.
Individual work is right when the grief is yours to carry: your feelings, your memories, your relationship with the person who died and the way the loss has changed you. Even when a whole family is mourning, each person needs a private place to grieve.
With me you get continuity, a steady presence and honest reflection from week to week. If you discover that the loss has stirred wider questions about your life, online psychotherapy describes my structured individual work more broadly.
Couples therapy fits better when the loss is shared and the relationship itself is suffering. Partners often grieve differently: one needs to talk, the other needs to keep busy, and each feels the other is failing them. After the death of a child or a parent, this can open a painful distance.
In couples sessions I help you both see the cycle, honour each other’s way of mourning and stay close through it. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing when the loss lives between you.
The right pace depends on how recent the loss is, how much support you have around you and how much the grief is affecting your days.
I usually suggest weekly or fortnightly sessions at first. Around anniversaries, birthdays or a trip home to the grave, closer support may help, and I will say so. When the grief has found more of a place, we can safely meet less often.
A bundle makes sense when you know you want steady support for some months and would rather not decide after each session whether to continue. Grief already asks for many decisions. A planned course removes one of them.
A bundle lowers the cost per session and gives you a plan agreed at the start. I will tell you honestly what scope seems likely. You can compare options on therapy discounts and bundles and in the cards below.
Therapy has done its job when you can think of the person with love as well as pain, when the loss no longer blocks your days and when you can carry it with the support around you.
We look at progress together in plain terms, and I will not keep you coming out of habit. Sessions can thin out, pause or end. Coming back later, perhaps on a hard anniversary or after another loss, does not mean the earlier work failed.
Not certain this is the place to begin? Here is how online grief therapy compares with the options grieving people most often weigh up.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online grief therapy (this page) | Someone close to you has died, and the mourning feels heavy, lonely or bewildering. | Weekly or fortnightly 1-hour video sessions |
| Online anticipatory grief therapy | The person you are losing is still alive, through illness or slow decline. | Video sessions fitted around care and visits |
| Online complicated grief therapy | Years have passed, and the loss still feels raw, frozen or untouchable. | Weekly video sessions over some months |
| Acute online psychotherapy | The death happened days ago and you are in shock. | Video sessions close together, starting within days |
Online grief therapy with me is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for adults who have lost someone close and are finding the grief heavy, lonely or confusing. It gives the loss room, helps you understand the feelings it holds and supports you as your life reshapes around it.
I work in depth and at your pace, with the whole person rather than a model of grief stages. This is a main branch of my online psychotherapy.
Come when the grief is heavier than you can carry alone, when you have nowhere to talk about the person or when the loss is affecting your sleep, work or relationships. You do not need to wait for a set number of months.
From 22 years of practice, I look at whether the grief is moving, even slowly, or whether it has frozen or become isolated. Either way, your own sense that you need help is reason enough to come.
Yes. Therapy cannot undo the death, and I will never pretend otherwise. What it can do is give your grief a place, help you understand it and ease the loneliness of carrying it.
In my clinical experience, grieving people often feel lighter simply from being able to talk about the person without someone changing the subject. I would focus with you on the relationship, what it meant, what remains unsaid and how the bond can continue.
No. Many people feel worse after some months than in the first weeks, when shock and practical tasks kept them going. The quiet that follows can be the hardest time.
I do not measure grief against a calendar. I look at what your grief is doing and what it needs. If it has stayed raw or frozen for years, online complicated grief therapy goes further into that.
Because grief pulls in two directions. Part of you needs company so you are not alone with the loss. Another part needs space, because other people’s presence can make the absence sharper. Neither is wrong.
I help you understand which way you move and what each shift protects. Then we find ways to ask for the kind of company you can take in, and to step back without cutting yourself off.
We start with the person and the loss: who they were to you, how they died and how your days have been since. By the end I will share my first impression of what your grief needs and where we might begin.
You do not need to prepare, and tears are welcome. Some people bring a photograph to the screen. Book your first session or arrange a free 30-minute call if you would like to talk first.
Many people come for a course of sessions over a few months, weekly or fortnightly. A recent loss with good support around you may need less. A loss that stirred older grief, or that happened far from home, may need more.
From 22 years of practice, I suggest agreeing a first stretch and reviewing it honestly. At each review we decide together whether to continue, space sessions out or stop.
Yes, and for many people it suits grief particularly well. You can talk about the person from your own home, among their photographs, and keep the same therapist if you travel back for the funeral, the estate or the anniversary.
You need a quiet room, headphones and a stable connection. Times in the booking calendar show in your local time, and if you are unsure, we can talk it through on a free call.
Grief therapy is individual psychotherapy, booked as 1-hour online sessions with 50 minutes of therapy. Fees are shown in US dollars on my prices page.
If you expect several months of support, a therapy bundle saves you 10 per cent and gives you a structured plan. Bundles are described on therapy discounts and bundles.
Book your first session directly, or request a free 30-minute call if you want to meet me first. A few words about who you have lost is all I need.
If no time suits you, or the death is very recent and you are struggling to get through the days, write to me. Because I hold some room for acute cases, a time within days is usually possible, and acute online psychotherapy explains how that works. Choose a time, and we begin with your loss.
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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