Recent Stories

Punished by God? : Dear Dr. Neimeyer:

By Dr. Robert Neimeyer | January 13, 2020 | 2 Comments

In my practice I have encountered some clients who have experienced a significant loss in the past (e.g., loss of a parent when they were teenagers), which obviously altered their world views. They made sense of their losses by coming to the conclusion that bad things can happen randomly in this world, while at the […]

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A Widow’s Complicated Grief Rituals…Dear Dr. Neimeyer:

By Dr. Robert Neimeyer | January 6, 2020 | 1 Comment

     I am a therapist who is seeing a woman who lives alone and without children, for complicated grief, and one of the people for whom she is grieving is her husband.  They were married 4 years before he died 19 years ago,  Every year on their anniversary, she has a very complicated ritual […]

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Preparing for the anniversary of a daughter’s passing

By Dr. Robert Neimeyer | December 30, 2019 | 0 Comments

Dear Dr. Neimeyer, How do I handle the one year anniversary of my daughter’s passing, which is coming up next month? She left 3 babies behind, and I found her in her room with the boys with her. Luckily they were sleeping. But I can’t get that vision out of my head! I cry, I […]

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A Son’s Suicide and the Holiday Season

By Dr. Robert Neimeyer | December 23, 2019 | 0 Comments

Dear Dr. Neimeyer, My 18 year old son hung himself in a tree on June 24, 2016. Since that day my life is full of guilt and heartache. I’ve seen multiple counselors and many of them have been great and they all tell me the same thing:  it’s not my fault. But, I cannot forgive […]

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Five Principles for Managing Grief in the New Year

By Dr. Robert Neimeyer | December 16, 2019 | 0 Comments

Dear Dr. Neimeyer– My husband died just over a year ago, so on January 1st I will start my second year without him, and I am not looking forward to it.  It’s not that I am immobilized by grief, as I have gotten better across the months in that department, and actually feel pretty good […]

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My husband passed away…

By Dr. Robert Neimeyer | December 9, 2019 | 0 Comments

Dear Dr. Neimeyer, My husband passed away in five years ago. It was right before our oldest son graduated from high school and our youngest son was eight. My oldest son graduated  with a degree in electrical engineering last year. My oldest son, I believe bottled up everything; he won’t even talk to me or his […]

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Ambiguous Losses: a brother’s cancer diagnosis

By Dr. Robert Neimeyer | December 2, 2019 | 1 Comment

Dear Dr. Neimeyer, Five years ago my younger brother, Eric, was diagnosed with cancer, though he was only 15 at the time.  Our life as a family seemed to change overnight, as we all were faced with the fear of what this might mean, and my parents became totally absorbed in his chemotherapy, hospitalizations, and […]

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Grieving and the Holidays

By Dr. Robert Neimeyer | November 25, 2019 | 0 Comments

Dear Dr. Neimeyer, My husband Don died 9 months ago after a rapid decline; and his lungs basically stopped working, even with oxygen treatments.  His death has been hard for us as a family in many ways, as he lived only about 6 months after getting the diagnosis, and we are now facing the first Christmas […]

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The Roller Coaster of Grief

By Dr. Robert Neimeyer | November 18, 2019 | 1 Comment

Dear Dr. Neimeyer. Today marks eight months since I lost my husband. He was only 46 years old. I still am having a difficult time realizing he is not coming back. The first few months after he was gone, I had to leave work every single day at lunch to cry in my car and […]

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Loss of a Beloved Uncle

By Dr. Robert Neimeyer | November 11, 2019 | 0 Comments

Dear Dr. Neimeyer, I just lost my uncle, and I can’t even see a picture with him in without breaking down. He and I were very close, but I didn’t even get to go to his funeral. I feel like I let him down by not going. The last time I saw him was the […]

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