Grief Counseling in Boulder, Colorado

Grief does not follow a schedule, and it rarely looks the way people expect. If you are searching for a grief therapist in Boulder, you may be several weeks past a death, or several years. You may be grieving something that was never a death at all. Either way, you are probably tired of managing it alone.

I am Grant Marylander, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Grief Counselor. I founded Share Your Grief to offer grief counseling that is specialized, not general. Before private practice I spent years in palliative care and hospice, including roughly 3,000 consults with patients and families facing serious illness and death, and I led the bereavement program at a Boulder hospice. Grief is not one thing I do. It is the center of what I do.

Who I work with

People come to grief therapy carrying many kinds of loss. In my Boulder practice I work with adults grieving:

•         The death of a spouse, partner, parent, sibling, child, or close friend

•         Suicide loss, and the particular questions and isolation that come with it

•         Pregnancy loss, miscarriage, stillbirth, and infertility

•         Anticipatory grief while a loved one is dying, and the exhaustion of caregiving

•         The end of a marriage or long relationship

•         A diagnosis, a change in health, or the loss of a life you expected to have

•         Losses that don't get a funeral: a career, an identity, a home, a faith

Some of my clients describe their grief as overwhelming. Others describe it as strangely absent, or as something that shows up as irritability, numbness, or trouble concentrating rather than sadness. Both are grief. If you are not sure whether what you're feeling "counts," that question alone is worth a conversation.

What grief counseling with me looks like

I do not believe grief moves through stages, and I won't ask you to identify which one you're in. The stage model is outdated, and it leaves people feeling they're grieving wrong. Instead, I work from clinically grounded approaches: Worden's tasks of mourning, the Dual Process Model, Continuing Bonds Theory, Prolonged Grief Therapy where the loss has become stuck, and Compassion Focused Therapy for the shame and self-criticism that so often ride alongside loss. I also draw on ACT, IFS, and DBT when they serve.

In practice, that means sessions where you can say the unsayable things: the relief mixed with the sorrow, the anger at the person who died, the guilt over what you did or didn't do, the fear that you're taking too long. My approach is gentle, direct, and at times challenging. I will not rush you toward feeling better, and I will not let you disappear into the grief either.

The goal is not to get over the loss. It is to integrate it: to carry it in a way that allows a full life to grow around it. The grief doesn't shrink. It finds its place inside something larger than itself. Part of that work is keeping an active, chosen connection with the person or the life you lost, built through what you do (rituals, remembrance, the ways you speak about them), not something you wait to receive.

Grief support groups

Alongside individual therapy, I have facilitated a number of grief support groups, including a group for survivors of suicide loss. Some clients find that a group and individual work together do something neither does alone. If a group would help you, ask me about what's currently running.

The book

I wrote Sitting with Grief: A Therapist's Guide to Being Present with Loss for grievers, for the people who love them, and for clinicians. It covers much of what this page can only gesture at: why the stage model fails people, why the one-year mark is a myth, what continuing bonds actually look like in practice, and how to stay present with someone in pain without trying to fix it. It's free, with no email required, at shareyourgrief.org/book. If you want a sense of how I think before you decide whether to reach out, that's the place to start.

Practical details

In-person sessions are held at my office at 1650 38th Street, Suite 100E, in Boulder. Telehealth sessions are available to anyone in Colorado.

I am in-network with several insurance plans, provide superbills for out-of-network reimbursement, and keep a limited number of sliding scale spots open. Current plans and fees are on my insurance and fees page.

A few questions people ask before reaching out

Is it too soon? No. Some people come within days of a death. Others wait years. There is no wrong time, and coming early does not mean you are weak or that something is wrong with you.

Is it too late? Also no. Grief that was set aside for a decade is still grief, and it responds to attention.

What if I'm not sure it's grief? Many of my clients arrive believing they have an anxiety problem, a sleep problem, or a motivation problem, and discover a loss underneath it. If you're uncertain, that's a reasonable thing to explore in a consultation.

Do I have to talk about the death in detail? Not unless and until you want to. You set the pace.

Where to start

I offer a free 15-minute consultation. It's a short, relaxed conversation about what you're carrying and whether working together makes sense. There's no pressure and no obligation. You can schedule it at shareyourgrief.org, or call (720) 295-3544.

You don't have to have it figured out before you reach out. You just have to reach out.