
GRIEF Counseling
When grief gets stuck…
If one more person says, “time heals all wounds” or that they are “sorry for your loss” you’re going to lose your mind. They don’t understand that this isn't regular grief — this is grief that feels frozen in place, as raw and devastating today as it was months or years ago.
Maybe your person died suddenly, violently, or in a way that was senseless. Maybe you didn’t get to say goodbye, or you were there when it happened and can’t stop replaying those final moments. Maybe the death was by suicide, accident, or homicide, and you’re haunted not just by the loss, but by the circumstances.
Or maybe your loss doesn't fit society’s definition of "legitimate grief" — you lost an ex-spouse, an estranged family member, a pregnancy, a pet who was your world, or someone you loved but couldn’t openly mourn. People expect you to be “over it” by now.
You might find yourself stuck in one stage of grief — consumed by rage that won’t fade, guilt that eats at you daily, or a numbness that makes everything feel surreal.
While others seem to gradually adjust to their losses, you feel like you’re living in a time warp where the death happened yesterday….
The pain is just as intense now as it was immediately after the death
You avoid places, people, or activities that remind you of your person
You can’t accept that they’re really gone, or you’re stuck in denial
You feel responsible for their death or guilty that you’re still alive
You’re consumed by anger: at them, at God, at yourself, at the circumstances
You can’t imagine a future without them or feel like life has no meaning
You have intrusive images of how they died or their final moments
You feel like you're betraying them by having moments of happiness
You feel isolated in your pain, like you’re the only person who truly understood how special your person was. The world has moved on, but you’re still trapped in the moment everything changed.
You’ve tried Healing from the grief…
Traditional grief counseling — You talked about your person, shared memories, and learned about the “stages of grief.” The therapist was compassionate, but talking about it doesn’t change the fact that certain memories or images feel just as shocking and painful as they did right after the loss.
Grief support groups — Being around others who “get it” helped you feel less alone, but you noticed that some people seem to gradually heal while you remain stuck. Hearing others’ stories sometimes made your own pain feel worse, not better.
Medication — Antidepressants might have helped with sleep or daily functioning, but they can’t touch the gut-punch of when you hear your person's favorite song start on your Spotify, or when you instinctively reach for your phone to call them.
Self-help books and grief resources — You’ve read about “continuing bonds” and “meaning-making” and tried journaling exercises. Some concepts resonated, but the raw emotional charge around certain memories hasn’t budged.
Time and “staying busy” — Everyone said time would help, so you’ve tried to stay active and rebuild your life. But time alone doesn't heal complicated grief — it just creates a longer timeline of suffering.
Avoiding triggers — You’ve rearranged your life to avoid places, songs, dates, or activities that remind you of your person. This helps in the moment but has made your world smaller and smaller.
But here’s the thing…
Most grief support focuses on acceptance, adjustment, and “working through” your emotions. But here’s what they don’t address: the specific traumatic images, sounds, or memories that keep your grief fresh and raw.
Complicated grief happens when certain memories get stuck in your brain’s emergency alarm system. These might be…
The moment you got the call or found out they died
The last conversation you had (especially if it was an argument)
Visual images of the accident, hospital, or funeral
The sound of the machines in the ICU or the phone ringing with bad news
What you wish you had said or done differently
These memories aren’t stored like normal grief memories. Instead of feeling like something sad that happened in the past, they feel immediate and overwhelming, like your brain thinks the emergency is still happening.
Traditional grief therapy tries to help you accept and integrate the loss, but it doesn’t change how these specific traumatic memories are wired in your brain. That’s why you can understand intellectually that your person is gone, but certain reminders still hit you like a physical blow.
Relief for Complicated grief in 1-5 Sessions with Accelerated resolution Therapy...
Imagine your brain as a library where memories are stored like books. Your brain has two different ways to store memories:
The Regular Bookshelf — This is where most of your memories go, including normal grief memories. These memories:
Feel like they happened in the past, even if they’re sad
Can be revisited when you choose to remember them
Allow you to feel the sadness without being overwhelmed
Include both the loss and the love you shared
Feel manageable, even when they make you cry
The Emergency Alarm Bookshelf — This is where traumatic memories get stuck, including traumatic elements of your person’s or pet’s death. These memories:
Feel like they’re happening right now, not in the past
Get triggered unexpectedly by sights, sounds, dates, or places
Cause your body to react as if the emergency is still happening (panic, racing heart, etc.)
Feel just as raw and shocking as they did when the death first occurred
Hijack your thoughts and won’t let you focus on anything else
Here's what happened with complicated grief: The traumatic circumstances around your person’s or pet’s death got filed on the emergency alarm shelf by mistake. This might include the moment you got the news, the last conversation you had, images from the hospital or accident scene, or even imagined scenarios about their final moments.
Now every time something reminds you of these memories, your brain treats it like the emergency is happening all over again. Instead of feeling like a sad memory from the past, it feels immediate and overwhelming.
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) helps you reorganize your brain’s filing system.
ART helps move these traumatic death-related memories from the emergency alarm shelf to the regular bookshelf where they belong.
The eye movements you do in ART help your brain reprocess these memories and file them correctly — as something sad that happened in the past, not as an ongoing emergency. Your love for your person and your grief remain intact, but the traumatic charge gets removed.
How ART Sessions Work…
I meet with my clients for ART sessions online only. I use a website that provides a visual tool that your eyes will follow during the eye-movement sets.
You and I will set aside 90 minutes for your session. This gives us enough time to finish the whole process. With that being said, sometimes we only need 60-75 minutes to complete a session.
Here is a general overview of the ART session process:
Getting oriented: You'll sit in a comfortable chair where you can relax and have privacy. I’ll walk you through the entire process, and you’ll have full control over the whole session.
Eye movements: During ART, you'll follow my hand with your eyes as it moves back and forth. This eye movement is similar to what happens naturally during REM sleep when your brain processes the day's events.
Thinking about the memory: I will ask you to bring to mind an image from the difficult experience. Remember, you decide what is shared. You can keep it private if you want to or need to.
Noticing feelings: As you think about this image, you’ll notice feelings and physical sensations in your body. Maybe your chest feels tight, or your stomach feels queasy. I’ll ask you to name these feelings periodically as we go along.
Changing the pictures: I will guide you to change the images in your mind. You might make them smaller, blur them out, push them farther away, or replace them completely with something positive.
Image replacement: I’ll guide you in changing how the memory looks and feels to you. It’s like being the director of your own movie and creating a new, better ending.
Checking in: I will regularly check how you're feeling. Our goal is to reduce the distress until the memory or thought no longer bothers you.
How Many ART Sessions You Might Need For complicated grief…
ART is known for working quickly, which is why “Accelerated” is in its name! Research shows that complicated grief typically resolves in 4 ART sessions.
How this compares to other grief treatments:
Traditional complicated grief therapy: 16-25 sessions (taking 4-6 months)
ART for complicated grief: 4 sessions (usually completed in 4-5 weeks)
This means ART gets you results in 75-80% fewer sessions than traditional grief counseling approaches.
The research followed people for 2+ months after their ART sessions and found that the improvements lasted — meaning you don’t just feel better temporarily, the relief continues long after your sessions are done.
Bottom line: While traditional grief therapy can take months of weekly appointments, ART can help you process your complicated grief and start moving forward in just 4 sessions.
Here’s what a sample ART schedule might look like…
Session 1: We'll identify which specific memories or images about your person's death are most disturbing. These might be from the actual event, the hospital, the funeral, or even imagined scenarios about their final moments. I'll explain how ART works and what to expect.
Sessions 2-4: This is where the actual memory reprocessing happens. You'll bring to mind the disturbing image while making specific eye movements. During this process, your brain will naturally begin to file these memories differently - they'll start to feel more like something that happened in the past rather than an ongoing emergency.
Session 5 (if needed): We'll address any remaining stuck points and ensure the traumatic charge has been fully removed from the memories that were keeping you frozen.
Follow-up: I’ll check in with you to confirm that you’re able to think about your person and their death without the same overwhelming distress.
What Makes ART for grief Different…
ART (Accelerated Resolution Therapy) doesn't try to help you “get over” your loss or change how much you love and miss your person. Instead, it specifically targets the traumatic memories that are keeping your grief stuck and preventing natural healing.
Here's what makes ART different…
We target the specific stuck points: Instead of talking generally about your loss, we identify the exact images, sounds, or moments that still feel overwhelming and reprocess those specific memories.
You keep the love, lose the trauma: ART doesn’t change your loving memories or diminish the importance of your relationship. It only changes how the traumatic or disturbing memories affect you.
It's remarkably fast: Most people see significant relief in 3-5 sessions. You don't have to spend months or years processing your grief.
You stay in control: You decide which memories to work on and how much to share. You can keep the private details private.
It works with traumatic circumstances: Whether your person died by suicide, accident, violence, or a medical trauma, ART can address the specific elements that make the loss feel traumatic rather than just sad.
It honors complicated relationships: If your relationship was complex — if you loved someone who also hurt you, or if you’re grieving someone you “shouldn't” miss — ART can help without judgment about what your grief “should” look like.
What People Typically Experience After ART for grief…
After ART sessions, many people report:
You can visit places that reminded you of your person or pet without being overwhelmed by panic or devastation
Disturbing images from their death, the hospital, or funeral stop replaying in your mind
You can talk about your person and share memories without being hijacked by the traumatic details
The guilt or “what if” thoughts lose their grip — you still wish things were different, but the thoughts don’t torture you
You can listen to their favorite song or see their photos without feeling like the loss just happened
You sleep better because the intrusive thoughts and images have calmed down
You feel like you can honor their memory and move forward with your life without betraying them
The anniversary of their death or other significant dates feel sad but manageable, not devastating
You can imagine a future that includes both missing them and finding meaning again
This is what becomes possible: You’ll always love and miss your person or pet — that never changes.
But the traumatic elements that have kept your grief frozen will lose their power. You’ll be able to access your loving memories without being hijacked by the painful ones.
The death will feel like something that happened in the past, allowing your natural grief process to finally move ahead.

get started today
hi there
I’m ALLYSON
I’m not the type of therapist who believes you need to spend months or years in therapy to experience deep healing and long-lasting change.
That’s why I offer Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) to my clients for problems like trauma/PTSD, generalized depression and anxiety, grief and bereavement, OCD, and phobias.
ART is a refreshing alternative to traditional talk therapy — it is structured, focused, efficient, and designed to create meaningful change in just a few sessions (an average of 3-4 sessions, to be exact!).
One thing that sets ART apart is its ability to resolve painful, upsetting experiences without requiring you to relive the experience or rehash the details. In other words, unlike in traditional talk therapy, you actually don’t have to talk about the experience at all (weird, right?).
By working with your brain's natural healing processes, you and I will address your painful emotions, images, sensations, and experiences — all while keeping you firmly anchored in the present. You’re in control every step of the way.
FAQs About WOrking with Me…
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This is for people who love and miss someone deeply but are haunted by traumatic memories of their death. If you avoid certain places or can't stop replaying disturbing images from the hospital, accident, or funeral, ART can remove the traumatic charge from these memories in just 3-5 sessions while leaving your precious memories untouched.
If you’ve read through the relevant Therapy Service page and the information doesn’t answer your question, or if you want to double-check that a service is the right fit before scheduling, please use the Contact Form below to reach out to me.
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Great question! You don't need to be a strong visualizer for ART to work. The three things needed for a successful session are: the ability to move your eyes comfortably left and right, the ability to hold a thought or image (even a vague one), and motivation to resolve the issue.
Many clients worry about this, but you can 'think your way through' the problematic scene or thought rather than needing vivid mental pictures. ART works with whatever way your mind naturally processes information.
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ART works best for people who are genuinely ready to resolve their issue. If there are secondary benefits to keeping the problem (like avoiding certain responsibilities or getting extra attention/care), or if someone isn’t fully committed to or ready for change, ART may not be effective.
ART is most successful when clients are motivated to put the issue behind them.
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ART sessions are 90 minutes to ensure we have enough time to complete the full process without feeling rushed. While some sessions may only take 60-75 minutes, others require the full 90 minutes if we discover additional scenes or underlying issues during the process.
This longer timeframe allows for thorough resolution rather than having to stop mid-process and continue in another session. You'll only be charged the flat $700 fee regardless of whether we use 60 or 90 minutes.
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I'm so glad you're interested in working together!
I don't offer consultation calls due to my scheduling constraints.
Instead, I've included comprehensive information about working with me on my website so that you can get all your questions answered immediately.
I am also in the process of adding video content to my Therapy Service pages as an alternative way of consuming the information (and so that you can get a feel for what it's like to work with me on video!).
Of course, there will always be unique circumstances. If you don't know which service best fits your situation, or you have a question that isn't answered on the Therapy Service pages, please feel free to reach out via the Contact Form below.
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Unfortunately, no. I live in Mexico, and therefore ALL of my work is 100% online. I use HIPAA-compliant video software to meet with clients, so we’ll be able to see each other during the session.
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My fee is $700 for a 90-minute ART session. For ART intensives, please see session pricing options HERE.
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The ART treatment protocol is usually completed within 1-5 sessions, depending on complexity. Simple issues like needle phobia or a single traumatic incident typically only need 1 session, while more complex issues like social phobia, complicated grief, or OCD may take 4-5 sessions.
Each session is 90 minutes long, and we'll typically meet weekly to start. This gives us enough time to complete the full ART process without feeling rushed.
For clients who want faster results, ART intensives are also available. An intensive is 4+ hours in one day and can address multiple "scenes" or complex issues all at once. There is a cost difference for intensives, but they allow you to complete your entire treatment in a single day or a weekend, rather than spreading it across several weeks.
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No, I am not in network with any insurance company. (You may sometimes see my name on outdated provider lists, but I left insurance networks in 2022.)
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Yes, but please be aware that insurance reimbursement varies significantly by plan, and my 90-minute sessions may not fit standard insurance session length expectations (typically 60 minutes). You are responsible for paying at the time of service, and my record system will email you a Superbill automatically once per month (by request only).
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When you schedule a session, payment is required at the time of booking to hold your spot. For any additional sessions I schedule for you, your card will be automatically charged within 24 hours prior to the appointment time. Credit cards are securely stored in your private client chart.
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I am currently seeing ART clients on Thursdays from 6am to 4pm Pacific Time. I will be opening additional session options as they become available.
ART intensives are available outside of my typical Thursday schedule but will need about 2 weeks' notice to arrange.
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Once you request a session either via email or using the self-scheduling widget above, I will send you over your new client forms. (These forms come from my electronic record system, not my email.) You’ll be responsible for reviewing and digitally signing them at least 72 hours in advance of your scheduled appointment to avoid an auto-cancellation. If you don’t receive these forms, please reach out to me at allyson@bridgetownclinical.com.
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Please use my self-scheduling link HERE to schedule your first session.
reach out
Contact Me
If you have any questions that aren’t already answered below in the FAQ section, please send me a message using the contact form.
allyson@bridgetownclinical.com
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MASSACHUSETTS
WASHINGTON
OREGON