---
title: "Therapy After Losing a Parent | Online in California | Sharon Meyers, LCSW"
description: "Online therapy in California for adults grieving a parent, including complicated parents. Support for the shift in identity that follows and grief nobody gives you time for."
lang: en
json-ld: |
  {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@type": "ProfessionalService",
    "@id": "https://sharonmeyerstherapy.com/#practice",
    "name": "Sharon Meyers Therapy",
    "description": "Holistic online individual therapy for adults throughout California, with an office in Berkeley.",
    "url": "https://sharonmeyerstherapy.com",
    "telephone": "(415) 335-7446",
    "email": "sharon@sharonmeyerstherapy.com",
    "priceRange": "$$",
    "address": {
      "@type": "PostalAddress",
      "addressLocality": "Berkeley",
      "addressRegion": "CA",
      "addressCountry": "US"
    },
    "areaServed": {
      "@type": "State",
      "name": "California"
    },
    "availableLanguage": "English",
    "founder": {
      "@type": "Person",
      "name": "Sharon Meyers",
      "honorificSuffix": "LCSW",
      "identifier": "LCSW #106887",
      "jobTitle": "Licensed Clinical Social Worker",
      "url": "https://sharonmeyerstherapy.com/about"
    },
    "employee": {
      "@type": "Person",
      "name": "Sharon Meyers",
      "honorificSuffix": "LCSW",
      "identifier": "LCSW #106887",
      "jobTitle": "Licensed Clinical Social Worker"
    },
    "availableService": [
      {
        "@type": "Service",
        "name": "Grief and Loss Counseling",
        "url": "https://sharonmeyerstherapy.com/specialties/grief-loss"
      },
      {
        "@type": "Service",
        "name": "Narcissistic Abuse Recovery",
        "url": "https://sharonmeyerstherapy.com/specialties/narcissistic-abuse-relationship-trauma"
      },
      {
        "@type": "Service",
        "name": "Relationship Issues, Separation & Divorce",
        "url": "https://sharonmeyerstherapy.com/specialties/separation-divorce-new-beginnings"
      },
      {
        "@type": "Service",
        "name": "Pregnancy, Postpartum and Parenting Challenges",
        "url": "https://sharonmeyerstherapy.com/specialties/parenting-pregnancy-adoption"
      }
    ],
    "serviceType": "Online individual psychotherapy",
    "availableChannel": {
      "@type": "ServiceChannel",
      "serviceUrl": "https://sharonmeyerstherapy.com/begin-here",
      "availableLanguage": "English",
      "serviceLocation": {
        "@type": "VirtualLocation",
        "name": "Online therapy throughout California"
      }
    }
  }
---

[Now accepting new clients.  Book your free consultation today → ](/work-with-me)

[![Sharon Meyers Therapy logo](/assets/logo-sanddollar-B1yhAvCA.png)Sharon Meyers Therapy LCSW #106887 ](/)

[Home](/)[About](/about)

Specialties

[FAQ](/faq)[Blog](/blog)[Contact](/begin-here)

![Old family photographs and a worn wristwatch on a wooden table](/assets/losing-a-parent-ceAXoihQ.jpg)

Therapy for

# Losing a Parent 

People will tell you it is the natural order of things, as if that makes it smaller. It does not.

Whatever the relationship was, a parent is the person who was there before your memory starts. When they go, the ground you were standing on moves.

## Becoming the Older Generation 

Something quietly reorganizes after a parent dies. There is no longer anyone above you. You become the person who remembers, the one who is called first, the one holding the family history.

That shift often arrives with a strange new awareness of your own mortality, and of your children's future without you. It can make you protective, or restless, or suddenly clear about what you no longer want to spend your life on.

It also changes your siblings. Grief tends to surface old roles, and estates and belongings have a way of turning grief into logistics before anyone has felt anything.

## Grieving a Complicated Parent 

If your parent was critical, absent, unpredictable, or someone you kept at a distance to stay well, their death does not resolve any of it. It closes the door on repair.

You may feel relief, and then feel monstrous for feeling it. You may find yourself grieving hardest for the parent you needed rather than the one who died.

None of that needs to be tidied up before we can work with it. We make room for the whole relationship, not the eulogy version.

## Grief Nobody Gives You Time Off For 

A few days of leave, a memorial, and then you are expected to resume. Meanwhile you are calling banks, clearing out a house, deciding what to do with a lifetime of objects.

Administrative grief is exhausting in a way people rarely name, and it often delays the feeling part by months. Many people arrive here a year later, wondering why it is hitting now.

We use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to make space for the grief rather than scheduling it around everything else, and to help you decide what you want to carry forward from them, and what you are allowed to leave behind.

## Related Reading

-   [Complex Grief Read more → ](/therapy-for/complex-grief)
-   [Anticipatory Grief Read more → ](/therapy-for/anticipatory-grief)
-   [Emotionally Immature Parents Read more → ](/therapy-for/emotionally-immature-parents)

Sharon Meyers is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker offering telehealth sessions to adults located anywhere in California.

In Case of Emergency

This website is for informational purposes only. This practice is not a crisis service. If you are experiencing a mental health emergency, please do not wait for a reply.

-   Call [911](tel:911) or go to your nearest emergency room if you are in immediate danger.
-   Call or text [988](tel:988) to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
-   Text HOME to [741741](sms:741741) to reach the Crisis Text Line.

## The order of things does not make it easier. 

Schedule a free consultation to talk it through.

[Schedule a Free Consultation](/begin-here)

### Sharon Meyers Therapy

LCSW #106887  
Online therapy throughout California  
Office located in Berkeley, CA

Quick Links

-   [Home](/)
-   [About](/about)
-   [Specialties](/specialties)
-   [FAQ](/faq)
-   [Blog](/blog)
-   [Contact](/begin-here)
-   [Therapy For](/therapy-for)
-   [Online Therapy](/online-therapy)
-   [Guides](/guides)

Contact

-   [(415) 335-7446](tel:4153357446)
-   [sharon@sharonmeyerstherapy.com](mailto:sharon@sharonmeyerstherapy.com)

[Psychology Today](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/sharon-meyers-berkeley-ca/1080260)

**In case of emergency:** call or text [988](tel:988) or go to your nearest emergency room. This website is for informational purposes only.

[Privacy Policy](/privacy)· [Good Faith Estimate](/good-faith-estimate)· [Notice to Clients](/notice-to-clients)

© 2026 Sharon Meyers Therapy · LCSW #106887