How Therapy Can Help With Political Grief

by Dr. Kat Valentine AMFT

A lot of people are struggling psychologically with this current moment in politics.

Do you find yourself feeling numb or slightly detached from yourself recently? Do you find yourself still in denial after the first few months of 2025, maybe avoiding reading the news? Does it still feel hard to acknowledge how the country is changing?

You may be experiencing political grief, and therapy can help you process the strong emotions that are coming up for you. 

You may have heard of the 5 stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (Kübler-Ross & Kessler, 2014). These are emotions that many experience in response to change or loss, but it’s important to note that not everyone will experience all of these emotions and mourning often isn’t a linear process (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation, 2025).

What might these stages look like in the context of political grief?

Denial

Denial of the current political situation might look like avoiding reading any news, not wanting to fully acknowledge what’s happening in order to avoid the anger or sadness that often sinks in or avoiding talking about politics in social gatherings to further protect yourself from confronting strong emotions. It could also involve fantasizing about moving to another country to escape the current reality or getting lost in immersive media like video games, tv, or books. It’s normal to go through a period wherein it feels too painful to engage with what’s happening. Getting stuck in denial long-term, however, can keep you from engaging in positive emotions and diminish your sense of personal agency. Therapy can help you move out of denial and confront your negative emotions so you can move through them. 

Anger

Anger might look like getting mad at politicians or the people who voted for them, fantasizing about a violent revolt against the current government, considering getting or actually getting a firearm when previously it didn’t feel necessary. You might get into heated verbal arguments with people in person or on social media. Anger is an emotion people feel when they perceive that they or people they care about have been wronged, so it’s natural that it would come up when people see a rise in threatening rhetoric and actions towards several populations that were already marginalized.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling angry right now, but, as ever, it’s helpful to create a little distance from that anger to treat it as information. Therapy can help you move through anger by helping you identify constructive outlets and ways to manage your anger to motivate you instead of harm you.

Bargaining

Bargaining in the context of grief around a country creeping towards fascism might look like some of the things that Timothy Snyder (2017) warns against in his book, On Tyranny: 20 Lessons From the Twentieth Century. His first lesson is to avoid obeying in advance, imagining what actions an authoritarian government might ask of you and doing them before being told to directly in order to avoid feared negative repercussions of the government’s displeasure with you or your organization (Snyder, 2017). It can be tempting to accept an offered scapegoat, to say, “ok, you can take away trans kids’ healthcare as long as you don’t take away cis kids’ healthcare”. But this kind of bargaining threatens everyone’s humanity in the end. Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are all self-protective behaviors that people take in situations that feel dangerous and bargaining is a fawning response to a perceived threat. It’s normal to want to protect yourself, but therapy can help you explore ways to do so that don’t negatively affect you and others who may be in danger

Depression

Depression might occur in response to the current political situation when reality sets in and brings a sense of hopelessness. This might look like doom scrolling, feeling like there’s nothing you can do to positively affect the world, that nothing is in your control. Depression can feel like exhaustion or irritability, changes in your eating habits, difficulty with your every day routines, and a lack of pleasure in things you usually enjoy. Therapy can help people move out of depression around the current state of the world by aiding in rediscovering a sense of purpose, reconnecting with joy, finding self-compassion, building community, and identifying what changes might be possible.

Acceptance

Acceptance can look like acknowledging the state of the world as it is without letting that reality consume you. This might involve reading the news for a set period of the day, recognizing that while it’s hard for one person to affect national change on their own, it can be done with collective action. Acceptance could mean participating in protests and/or boycotts, donating money to institutions you want to protect, identifying a problem you see that’s important to you and feels like you might be able to make some progress on it in the next few years with the help of others. Acceptance might look like researching what’s worked for other people and countries to resist fascism to get inspiration now, finding a community of people who feel similarly to you who you can lean on when times get tough and help when you’re able. Therapy can help you process your anger, sadness, and fear so you can find acceptance and motivation to persist and resist. 

The first step towards moving through grief is realizing you’re in it. I’ve heard people dismiss what they’re feeling because they haven’t been directly impacted yet but just because you haven’t yet lost your job, your healthcare, your visa, doesn’t mean you haven’t been affected. Many of us have lost a sense of stability, confidence that American presidents will serve two terms at most and then peacefully cede power, faith that public goods like freedom of speech, national parks, public libraries, public radio, social security, and more will be protected. It’s completely reasonable to be in mourning right now on behalf of yourself, your loved ones, marginalized communities, and our nation as a whole. Therapy can provide a safe place to process all of the complex feelings that arise when our democracy is in peril. Get in touch today to schedule with one of our therapists.