Grief Therapy for Individuals, Couples & Families | Dr. Jessica Luiz – Virtual in CA & MD

Virtual grief therapy for adults, couples, and families in California and Maryland. Compassionate, culturally responsive, ACT-informed support with no timeline and no pressure to “move on.”

You can’t have one without the other. When you let someone matter, you also take on the risk of missing them. The depth of your grief isn’t a sign that you’re weak or doing it wrong. It shows how much space they held in your life: the text you almost send, the joke you turn to share, the handwriting that stops you in your tracks.

Grief isn’t a malfunction to fix. Often the hardest part isn’t only the loss. It’s the quiet pressure to be “doing better” by now: the check-ins that stop after a month, the sense that your sadness has become inconvenient. That pressure adds a second layer of pain. You end up grieving the person and also hiding your grief.

You don’t have to grieve on anyone else’s schedule. And you don’t have to carry it alone.

grief comes in many forms

Grief therapy can support you after:

The death of a partner, spouse, parent, child, sibling, friend, or chosen family member
Pregnancy, perinatal, or infant loss
The loss of a beloved animal companion
Sudden, traumatic, or unexpected loss
Anticipatory grief: loving someone through a serious illness or decline
Ambiguous loss: someone who is here but not here, such as through dementia, addiction, estrangement, or incarceration
Disenfranchised grief: losses others don’t recognize or know how to talk about
Losses of identity, health, homeland, relationships, or the future you imagined
Cumulative, collective, or intergenerational grief

If it matters to you, it matters here.

Our grief work will be…

Unhurried & Honest

No stages to complete and no deadline to meet. We make room for grief as it actually shows up for you: waves, numbness, anger, fear, relief, guilt, laughter, or all of them in one afternoon.

Values-Centered & Grounded

Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), we’ll learn to make room for the pain while staying connected to what matters to you, including the person you lost.

Culturally Responsive & Relational

Your grief happens inside a family, a culture, a faith or spiritual life, and a history. We’ll honor the rituals, roles, and meanings that are yours.

Honoring Grief Across Cultures

There is no single “right” way to grieve. For some families, grief is held through prayer, novenas, and gatherings that continue for days. For others, it lives in an altar, a candle, a meal cooked in someone’s honor, a yearly anniversary, or quiet that is never spoken aloud. Some grief carries the weight of migration, displacement, or generations of loss.

I approach grief with cultural humility and curiosity, not assumptions. Your traditions, faith, language, and family expectations are welcome here, including when they feel complicated or conflict with one another.

When Grief Feels Stuck

For most people, grief changes shape over time, even though it never fully leaves. Sometimes, though, grief stays so intense and consuming that it becomes hard to function or imagine any future. That isn’t a personal failure. It’s a recognized experience, and specialized support can help. When it’s useful, I offer thoughtful assessment so we can understand what you’re carrying and tailor our work to it.

How We’ll Work with Grief: An ACT Perspective

Integration, not “closure.”
Healing rarely means getting over a loss or moving on from someone. More often, the loss becomes woven into who you are. It’s present without being the only thread. Many people find comfort in staying connected to their person through memory, ritual, conversation, legacy, and the ways they carry that person’s values forward.

Grief and living can coexist.
You don’t have to finish grieving before your life can continue. You can miss someone terribly and still laugh. You can hold the loss and still reach for the future. Neither of these cancels the other. Both are signs that you’re still here and still loving.

Feeling grief vs. getting swept away.
Grief tends to move when we allow it, and it tends to get heavier when we fight it or when we get caught in its stories. Together, we’ll practice:

Acceptance: letting waves of grief rise and pass, instead of bracing against them or performing being “okay”
Defusion: noticing painful thoughts like “I should be over this” or “It was my fault” as thoughts, so they don’t have the final word
Present-moment awareness: staying grounded through anniversaries, holidays, triggers, and ordinary Tuesdays
Self-as-context: finding the part of you that is bigger than this pain and can hold it

Where it hurts is where you care.
In ACT, pain and values are closely linked. Your grief points to what mattered most. We’ll use that to guide small, meaningful steps forward: honoring your person, reconnecting with others, and rebuilding a life that has room for both love and loss.

Seasons of grief.
Life moves in seasons, and you can’t rush winter by wanting spring more. Some seasons call for rest and survival. Others call for slowly planting something new. Part of our work is noticing which season you’re in, and giving yourself permission to do that season’s work instead of the work you think you should be doing.

FAQs

Neither. Some people reach out within days. Others come years later, when an anniversary, a new loss, or a life change brings the grief back up. There is no wrong time.
No. Our goal isn’t to help you forget or detach. It’s to help you carry the loss in a way that leaves room for your life and your love, so the relationship can continue in a new form.
Family sessions include adult family members (18+) and are often 90 minutes long, which gives everyone time to be heard. We’ll talk at the start about goals, confidentiality, and how sessions will work, so everyone knows what to expect.
Sessions are virtual. Each participant must be physically located in California or Maryland at the time of the session. We can talk through your family’s situation during the free consultation.
I’m in-network with Lyra and Modern Health and provide superbills for out-of-network reimbursement. A limited sliding scale is available through the Lotus Therapy Fund for AAPI-identifying individuals. Visit Fees & Insurance for details.

BOOK YOUR FREE 20 Minute CONSULTATION

Share what you’re carrying, at whatever level feels okay right now
Learn how I support grief using ACT, compassion-based, and culturally responsive care
Explore which format fits: individual, couples, or family sessions
Decide together if we’re a good fit, with no pressure and no obligation