Grief & Loss
Hypnotherapy for Grief & Loss in Bishop's Stortford
Grief doesn't follow a timetable, and there's no right way to feel it. This is a space to be heard, at whatever pace is right for you.
You are not alone
Grief Looks Different for Everyone
Some grief is acute and overwhelming — a wave that arrives and takes the floor from under you. Some grief is quieter, more sustained — a low hum of absence that colours everything, even when you seem to be functioning fine on the outside. Some grief is complicated by feelings that are hard to name: guilt, relief, anger, or the sense that you're grieving something nobody else can quite understand.
None of these experiences are wrong. And none of them require you to have a certain type of loss to deserve support. Grief includes bereavement — and it also includes the loss of a relationship, a marriage, a sense of identity, a future you'd imagined, or a version of your life you'd built your hopes around.
Bereavement
The loss of someone you loved — sudden or expected, recent or long ago.
Relationship loss
Separation, divorce, the end of something that mattered, even if it needed to end.
Other losses
A diagnosis, a miscarriage, a career, a sense of who you were. All real. All worth support.
How I can help
Finding a Way to Carry It
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy doesn't try to speed up grief or suggest that moving forward means leaving someone behind. The goal is something more nuanced: finding the capacity to hold the loss while also being able to re-engage with life. To feel moments of ease without guilt. To build a future that still honours what you've lost.
Each session offers something rare when you're grieving: an hour to be completely honest about how you feel, in a space where you don't have to protect anyone else, perform recovery, or pretend to be further along than you are.
The hypnosis component offers something equally valuable: deep, genuine rest. When grief is consuming, proper rest is often the first casualty. The relaxation that hypnosis provides isn't a distraction — it's restorative in a way that sleep alone often isn't, when sleep is broken or anxiety-saturated.
"Grief work is some of the most important work I do. I don't try to fix what can't be fixed — I try to help people find enough space around it to breathe. That's often enough to start moving again."
— Vikki, First Step Therapy
When grief gets complicated
Why Some Grief Gets Stuck — and What Helps
Most grief, while painful, shifts over time. The acute waves become less frequent; the absence becomes something you learn to carry. But for a significant number of people, grief doesn't move — it intensifies, or settles into a kind of permanent fog that interferes with every aspect of daily life.
This is sometimes called complicated grief or prolonged grief disorder. It's characterised by intense, persistent longing; difficulty accepting the reality of the loss; a feeling that life cannot have meaning without what's been lost; and often a withdrawal from relationships and activities that once provided comfort.
Complicated grief is more common after sudden or traumatic losses, losses where there is unresolved conflict, or losses that carry additional layers of guilt, shame, or ambivalence. It can also develop when someone has had to suppress their grief — carrying on for others, going back to work, appearing fine — without ever having the space to actually feel it.
Signs that grief may have become complicated:
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is well-suited to complicated grief precisely because it doesn't require you to repeatedly revisit the details of your loss — which is often retraumatising rather than helpful. Instead, we focus on gently expanding what's possible: small steps toward re-engagement, restoring the capacity for rest, and building a sense that the future can still hold something, without betraying what you've lost.
What to expect
At Your Own Pace
Free initial consultation
A gentle, unhurried conversation. You don't need to explain everything. You don't need to be ready. This is just a chance to talk, and to see if this feels right.
Flexible, weekly sessions
Each session is led by where you are, not a fixed agenda. Some weeks that means talking; some weeks the hypnosis is the most important part. We go at your pace.
Finding your way forward
Not past it — through it. The aim is to carry what you've lost in a way that lets you also be fully present in your own life.
Client stories
From Those Who've Been There
"I was drowning at the point of meeting Vikki, trying to cope with grief, relationship issues and feelings of anxiety. Having had 11 sessions it has been absolutely worth it. These sessions proved an absolute blessing and have been life changing."
Moira
"Vikki gave me the tools to become more resilient, positive and happy. No probing into your past, completely relaxing."
Julie
FAQ
Questions About Grief Hypnotherapy
Related Conditions Vikki Can Help With
Grief can bring up connected conditions that Vikki can also help with.
There's No Rush. Just Reach Out When You're Ready.
The initial consultation is free, gentle, and completely without obligation. You don't have to have the right words.
Book Free Consultation