Psychological counselling for grief · Bucharest and online
Grief and loss
Sometimes the pain does not pass by the time others expect it to. At other times you feel nothing when it should hurt terribly. That is when you need a place where the loss can be felt, put into words and soothed.
Grief is not an illness and it has no timetable. It does not end after forty days, after a year or after a memorial. For some, the pain gradually eases; for others, it remains suspended, as if time had stopped on the day of the loss.
There are also losses for which no one says “I’m sorry for your loss”: a breakup, a lost pregnancy, the health you had before a diagnosis, the country left behind, a parent who is still alive but no longer recognises you. Precisely because they are not allowed to exist, these griefs are often the hardest to bear.
Areas of work
The death of someone close
A parent, a partner, a brother or sister, a friend. Sometimes death comes after a long illness, sometimes suddenly, without any goodbye. Each leaves something different behind: the exhaustion of the one who did the caring, the shock of the one who never got to say what they had to say. Mourning is the work through which, slowly, the person who has been lost stops being only an absence and becomes an inner presence.
The grief that has no name
A breakup, the loss of health, of a career, of a country, of the healthy child you had imagined. Real losses, but without ritual and without witnesses, which those around you often play down with a “you have to move on”. Without a witness, the pain does not disappear; it moves into tiredness, into irritability, into the body. Breakup →
When grief does not move
Sometimes, after months or years, the loss takes up as much space as on the first day: you cannot go into the room of the one who has gone, you cannot talk about them, or you cannot talk about anything else. So as not to feel the emptiness, you sometimes look for a closeness to fill it, and the grief does not pass; it is only postponed. At other times the pain does not appear at all, and in its place come tiredness, irritability, insomnia or a sadness without an object. Freud described the difference between mourning and melancholia (depression, in its severe forms): in mourning, the world becomes poor and empty; in melancholia, it is the person themselves who feels empty and worthless. Counselling helps you accept, for a while, an empty world, to let grief be and to set it in motion.
Grief in the family
Each member of the family grieves at a different pace. One wants to talk, another wants to move on; one keeps the belongings, another gives them away. Children grieve too, but differently from adults, and sometimes they stay silent to protect their parents.
Guilt, anger, relief
“If only I had noticed sooner”, “if only I had been there”. Guilt, anger at the one who has gone, at the doctors or at oneself, relief after a long illness: these are common feelings in grief, rarely spoken about because they seem forbidden. Every close bond holds both love and anger; after a loss, the anger can return in the form of guilt. Being able to think it and put it into words sets mourning free.
If you recognise yourself here, write to me →
Who it is for
- Adults going through a recent or long-past loss
- Couples and families grieving together, but at different paces
- Parents wondering how to support their children through grief
What my experience is made of
I am a clinical psychologist licensed in Romania and a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in training.
Ever since Freud (“Mourning and Melancholia”, 1917), psychoanalysis has placed mourning at the centre of how we understand psychic life: losing and being able to mourn are, in equal measure, a suffering and a work.
I myself came to psychoanalysis after a period of losses in midlife.
How it works
- Write to me using the form below or by email. A few lines are enough; there is no need to explain everything.
- I reply within 1–2 working days and we arrange the time of the first meeting together.
- The first meeting, 45 minutes long, at the practice or online, is devoted to understanding the situation. Only then do we decide together whether and how to continue.
The framework
Sessions last 45 minutes and take place at the practice or online. We set the pace together: in grief, a few meetings are sometimes enough; at other times, more time is needed. Fee: 250 lei / session.
First meeting
Write me a few lines about what brings you. There is no need to explain everything.
Or write to me directly at radutudorache@protonmail.com.
Psychological counselling does not replace a psychiatric consultation when one is needed. In an acute crisis, call 112.