About Our Program

Complicated grief is a debilitating condition that has been under-recognized by the mental health profession.

Our Complicated Grief Treatment Program focuses on finding treatments that can help people with complicated grief, and on teaching professionals to recognize and treat this condition. Our goals are:

• To improve the lives of people suffering from complicated grief; and
• To find the best ways to disseminate and implement complicated grief research and treatment information 

We develop educational materials based on our research and on work by others, and we train mental health professionals to treat complicated grief.

The Complicated Grief Treatment Program is based at Columbia University School of Social Work and the Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and operates under the direction of Katherine Shear, MD.

I wanted to watch a video of a family party that had been filmed four months before the death, but I couldn't bring myself to. I tortured myself daily about the video. I wanted someone to watch it with me, but I didn't know who to ask. Several weeks into my therapy I asked my therapist, and we watched it together. I don't know if she will ever know how much that meant to me.” A CGP Patient