Gigi Veasey, LCSW, LISAC, CCBT
Grief & Addiction
Gigi Veasey, LCSW, LISAC, CCBT, is a Phoenix-based psychotherapist, grief educator, author, consultant, and addiction-treatment professional. Her work centers on grief and loss, substance-use recovery, trauma, anxiety, depression, codependency, self-esteem, relationship concerns, and major life transitions. Across private practice, treatment programs, hospitals, workshops, and professional education, she helps clients and clinicians understand how loss can affect identity, emotional regulation, relationships, confidence, mental health, and the ability to sustain recovery.
A defining feature of Gigi’s work is her view that grief is broader than bereavement following a death. People may also grieve a relationship, family role, health status, career, home, sense of safety, former identity, or expected future. Her approach makes room for the complexity and individuality of these experiences rather than forcing clients into a universal timetable. At the same time, her work emphasizes hope, connection, meaning, and the possibility of building a life that can hold both remembrance and renewed engagement.
Gigi is also the developer of The Five Written Expressions of Grief®, a structured reflective process used in her counseling, intensives, workshops, and professional training. She presents writing as a way to give language to emotions, unfinished conversations, memories, guilt, anger, love, and changes in identity that may be difficult to express spontaneously. The method is best described as her signature clinical framework rather than as a replacement for established assessment or evidence-based treatment.
Professional Background
Gigi earned her Master of Social Work from Arizona State University in 1985. Her current verified professional listing identifies her as an Arizona Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Licensed Independent Substance Abuse Counselor, with credentials listed as LCSW-10265 and LISAC-10919. The same listing identifies her as a Certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapist and notes additional training in Brainspotting and trauma-focused approaches.
She currently provides psychotherapy through GNV Counseling and Consultation Services in Phoenix, where her work includes individual and group services for adults. Her present clinical specialties include grief, anxiety, and self-esteem, with additional work involving alcohol use, depression, trauma, codependency, dual diagnosis, relationship concerns, stress, and life transitions. Her integrative treatment profile includes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Brainspotting, interpersonal, psychodynamic, solution-focused, multicultural, and trauma-focused approaches.
Gigi is also the founder of Alcohol Recovery Solutions, a Phoenix behavioral health program focused on addiction, alcohol-use concerns, grief, and co-occurring mental health needs. Her work in this setting reflects the reality that substance use often intersects with unresolved loss, trauma, shame, isolation, damaged relationships, and major identity changes. Treatment therefore requires more than stopping a behavior; it may also require clients to develop emotional skills, strengthen support, rebuild routines, and address the experiences that previously intensified substance use.
Her professional education includes lectures, workshops, private trainings, and grief-focused intensives for clinicians, treatment facilities, and community organizations. She has also presented on grief’s role in addiction recovery through NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals. Her current training materials continue to feature The Five Written Expressions of Grief® as a core framework for helping behavioral health professionals better understand loss and its long-term effects.
Gigi is the author of Me After You: Surviving the Loss of a Loved One: Five Steps Toward Healing from Grief, published in 2021. The book extends her grief work beyond therapy by giving readers a guided process for examining the emotional, relational, and practical consequences of losing someone important. It also introduces her written-expression framework as a way to explore remembrance, unfinished feelings, identity, connection, and healing.
Areas of Expertise
Grief and Bereavement. Gigi’s primary area of expertise is grief in its many forms. Her work acknowledges sadness, numbness, guilt, anger, relief, confusion, anxiety, and changes in concentration or motivation as possible grief responses. She encourages clinicians to consider the client’s relationship to the loss, cultural context, support system, developmental history, and current functioning. The American Psychiatric Association’s overview of prolonged grief disorder provides an important diagnostic reference for distinguishing expected bereavement from persistent symptoms that meet formal clinical criteria.
The Five Written Expressions of Grief®. Gigi uses structured writing to help clients approach feelings and meanings that may be difficult to address through conversation alone. The process may support reflection on what was lost, what remains unfinished, how the relationship continues to matter, and how the client’s identity has changed. Clinicians should integrate any expressive intervention with assessment, pacing, consent, cultural responsiveness, and attention to emotional safety.
Grief, Addiction, and Recovery. Gigi’s work is particularly relevant when grief and substance use reinforce one another. A client may use alcohol or other substances to avoid emotional pain, loneliness, sleep disruption, traumatic memories, or guilt. In early recovery, previously suppressed grief may become more visible. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism explains that alcohol use disorder and mental health conditions frequently co-occur, reinforcing the need to assess mood, anxiety, trauma, grief, and substance use together rather than as unrelated problems.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Her CCBT credential and current practice profile reflect a CBT-informed approach to thoughts, emotions, behaviors, avoidance, and coping. In grief work, this may include examining beliefs such as “I should be over this,” “I cannot survive this feeling,” or “Enjoying life means I am betraying the person.” CBT-informed intervention should not argue clients out of grief; it can help reduce punitive beliefs, avoidance, isolation, and behavioral patterns that interfere with functioning. Clinical Events’ comparison of ACT and CBT offers additional context for therapists choosing between cognitive restructuring and acceptance- and values-based strategies.
Trauma-Informed and Integrative Practice. Grief and trauma may overlap, but they are not identical. Sudden, violent, witnessed, or medically distressing deaths may produce trauma symptoms alongside bereavement, while earlier trauma can shape how a person experiences attachment, safety, and loss. Gigi’s training in Brainspotting and her use of trauma-focused and integrative methods support individualized treatment planning. Clinical Events’ guide to evidence-based trauma therapy and its discussion of trauma-related self-defeating behaviors provide complementary material for clinicians assessing avoidance, dysregulation, and coping.
Anxiety, Depression, Self-Esteem, and Life Transitions. Gigi’s current practice also addresses anxiety, depression, low confidence, codependency, relationship concerns, and major transitions. These concerns frequently intersect with grief: loss may alter a person’s sense of worth, independence, belonging, safety, or future direction. Her counseling approach focuses on helping clients identify strengths, develop practical coping tools, reconnect with supportive relationships, and move toward a life that feels purposeful and emotionally sustainable.
Professional Training and Consultation. Gigi provides education for behavioral health professionals and organizations seeking more practical ways to address grief. Her training emphasizes the broad impact of loss, the importance of individual differences, and the need to avoid imposing a fixed timeline. Clinicians can also use the Clinical Events Articles and Resources library to explore related materials on grief, trauma, addiction, CBT, ethics, and evidence-informed practice.
Authored Publications
- Me After You: Surviving the Loss of a Loved One: Five Steps Toward Healing from Grief