Grief Therapy & Life Transitions
Telehealth across Vermont and Massachusetts · Private pay
Telehealth grief therapy for adults, couples, and families in Massachusetts and Vermont, with Maxwell Crystal, LICSW, former Bereavement Program Coordinator for BAYADA Hospice. Individual sessions are $175 and couples or family sessions are $200, both 50 minutes, private pay. The first step is a free 15-minute phone call.
Some of the hardest things to navigate aren't problems you can solve.
A significant loss. A relationship ending. A career that no longer fits. A health diagnosis. A move that uproots more than just your address. The death of someone central to your life.
These aren't situations where more information or better strategies are the answer. They're situations where something has fundamentally shifted — and how you understood yourself, your life, and what comes next no longer holds in quite the same way.
Therapy for grief and transition isn't about moving on faster. It's about understanding what's actually happening, finding your footing in it, and building forward from where you actually are.
Who comes here
People navigating grief and loss
You've lost someone — or something — significant. A person, a relationship, a version of your life you expected to have. The loss may be recent or it may have been years ago and still unresolved. You may be functioning in most areas of your life while carrying something that hasn't found a place to settle.
Grief doesn't follow a timeline, and it rarely looks the way people expect it to. This work meets you where you actually are — not where grief is supposed to be by now.
People in major life transition
Something significant has changed. A divorce or separation. A career ending or shifting. Children leaving home. A move to a new place. Retirement. A health event that reframes how you think about time and what matters.
Transitions destabilize because they don't just change circumstances — they change identity. Who you are in relation to other people, what structures organize your days, what you're working toward. Therapy helps you understand what's actually being asked of you in a transition, and build from there.
People dealing with complicated grief
Some grief is uncomplicated — painful, but moving. Some isn't. Complicated grief gets stuck. It may involve ambivalence about the person lost, circumstances that made the loss traumatic or unresolved, a relationship that was difficult before the loss, or a loss that others don't fully recognize as significant.
This is the kind of grief that benefits most from structured, experienced support — not just time.
People in the aftermath of a relationship ending
Divorce and separation carry grief that is often underestimated — especially when the relationship was complicated, or when there are children, finances, and long-shared lives still entangled. The loss isn't just the person. It's a structure, an identity, a future that was assumed.
This work helps you understand what you're actually grieving, stabilize during what is often a destabilizing period, and build a clearer sense of what comes next.
When the loss involved addiction or overdose
A death from an overdose, or from years of drinking or drug use, brings things other grief usually doesn't: guilt that runs in both directions, relief you may be ashamed of, a toxicology report that takes months, and people who go quiet once they hear the cause. Many families were grieving this person long before the death.
This is a large part of my work. Before private practice I was Clinical Director of Sana at Stowe, a residential addiction treatment program, and I ran a hospice bereavement program. In both places I sat with families who had lost someone and then been handed nothing at all.
If this is your loss, these may help:
When Someone You Love Dies From Addiction: How to Survive the First Year
"How Did They Die?" — What to Say After Losing Someone to Addiction
I also facilitate Grieving a Death from Addiction, an online support group: eight weekly sessions, ten people, $15 a session, open to adults anywhere in the US. See dates and how to join →
Grief inside a couple or family
Loss rarely happens to one person. When a parent, a child, a pregnancy, or a sibling is lost, partners often grieve on different timelines and in different ways — one needs to talk, the other needs to keep busy — and each can read the other's way as not caring.
I see couples and families together for this, by video, with each person joining from wherever they are in Massachusetts or Vermont. The work isn't about grieving the same way. It's about not losing each other while you grieve differently.
Related reading:
What I bring to this work
Before working in addiction treatment, I was the Bereavement Program Coordinator for BAYADA Hospice, overseeing grief and bereavement support for individuals and families through end-of-life care and complex grief.
That experience gave me a particular understanding of loss — not just the acute grief of death, but the slower, less acknowledged grief that comes with illness, decline, and the anticipatory loss of watching someone change before they're gone. And the grief that continues, often in complicated forms, long after.
Most private practice therapists haven't worked directly in this space at this depth. I have — and it shapes how I sit with people in it.
What the work looks like
Grief and transition work here is neither open-ended nor rushed.
We start by understanding what's actually happening — what you've lost, what it meant, and what's making this particular grief or transition difficult to move through. That clarity matters. Grief that isn't understood tends to get stuck or displaced.
From there, the work builds forward. Not toward "closure" — that's not usually how it works — but toward a clearer relationship with what happened, a steadier sense of yourself inside it, and a realistic picture of what comes next.
The pace is determined by what's actually needed, not by an external timeline.
This work may be right for you if…
You've experienced a significant loss and feel stuck in it
A major life change has left you uncertain about who you are or what comes next
You're functioning but carrying something heavy that hasn't found a place to go
The grief is complicated — ambivalent, unresolved, or not recognized by others
You want structured, experienced support, not just a space to talk
Common questions about grief therapy
Is what I'm feeling normal grief, or something more?
Most grief, however painful, is normal, and it slowly moves. It's worth getting support when life is narrowing rather than widening months in, when guilt or images of the death keep looping, or when alcohol or isolation has become the way you get through the day. You don't need to wait for any of those to reach out.
What is prolonged grief disorder?
A diagnosis added to the DSM-5-TR in 2022 for grief that, a year or more after a death, still disrupts daily life nearly every day — intense longing, feeling that part of you died, avoiding reminders. It's treatable, and it isn't a sign that you loved the person more or coped worse.
Is it too late if the loss was years ago?
No. Grief that was set aside — because there was a family to hold together, or no room to feel it at the time — tends to stay intact rather than fade. Years out is not late.
Can my partner or family come too?
Yes. I see individuals, couples, and families for grief. Family members can join from different homes, as long as each person is in Massachusetts or Vermont during the session.
Do you work with grief that isn't about a death?
Yes — divorce or a breakup, a career ending, a health diagnosis, children leaving home, a move. These losses change your identity and your routine, and the people around you often underestimate them.
Do you take insurance?
No. I'm private pay: $175 for individual sessions and $200 for couples or family. If your plan has out-of-network benefits, I can provide a superbill. Why most of us don't take insurance →
Can I work with you if I live outside Massachusetts or Vermont?
For therapy, no — I can only see clients who are in Massachusetts or Vermont during sessions. The support group for people grieving a death from addiction is open to adults anywhere in the US.
If you're in immediate danger or thinking about ending your life, call or text 988, or go to the nearest emergency room.
Fees and how to start
$175 per 50-minute individual session
$200 per 50-minute couples or family session
Private pay. Superbills available for out-of-network reimbursement, HSA and FSA cards accepted, and a limited number of sliding-scale spots. Pricing and payment options →
Telehealth by secure video for anyone in Massachusetts or Vermont — including Salem, Beverly, Peabody, Lynn, and the rest of the North Shore, and Stowe and Burlington in Vermont
How to start: book a free 15-minute phone call. I'll call you at the time you choose, you tell me briefly what's happened, and we decide together whether working together makes sense.