Q&A with psychotherapist Judy Heath on her career and venture as a playwright with her husband

Judy Heath’s life changed forever when her 6-month-old son, Jesse, died of sudden infant death syndrome 22 years ago.

Heath channeled the unexpected grief into going back to school and becoming a psychotherapist. She specializes in cases of bereavement, anxiety, life balance, divorce, relationships and parenting.

She has built practices in New York and Charleston and co-founded The Life Guidance Center in West Ashley.

In April, she celebrated the publication of her book on loss, “No Time for Tears: Surviving Grief in America,” and is planning a New York book tour in the fall for the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

“I’m very hopeful to bring this book to a larger audience because I think it’s something that can help people,” Heath said. “That’s something that’s very dear to my heart.”

Heath’s life isn’t solely focused on trials and suffering though. She recently wrote a comedic play with her husband, Thomas Burke Heath, about a retired couple from Long Island attempting to sell their house without their overly attached adult children catching on.

The play, “The Sunset Years,” premiered to a sold-out audience July 15 at The Village Playhouse in Mount Pleasant. The show will be performed again at 8 p.m. today and Saturday.

Visit www.judyheath.com.

Q: Instead of accepting defeat in your own tragedy with the loss of your son, you managed to turn it around into something positive. What led you to take that next step in life instead of giving up?

A: I would say most importantly is my parents, Walter and Rosemary Bachman. They really taught me, and my sisters, that you don’t give up. That no matter what happens, you gather yourself together and you go forward. That, and God, and embracing my spirituality.

I had a little boy at the time when Jesse died. I had a 4-year-old son, Carll. He was another reason to keep going — getting up in the morning and taking care of him. It was a combination of those things and the support of my family.

Q: You were based in New York at the time of 9/11. How did that impact the way that you went about counseling?

A: I lived in a bedroom community of New York City where 23 souls were lost in the Twin Towers. And I was a bereavement specialist, so you can only imagine the amount of pain. You could literally walk out the door and smell the smoke from the towers from my house.

So I began to work for the New York City Fire Department on Long Island as a counselor. That was another new part of my journey — learning from them a lot more about post-traumatic stress disorder, and how to help them and their families through that time.

It was very painful and very difficult, and I’m not going to say there weren’t times where I felt like it was too much. I was so overwhelmed with raising a family and having this to deal with. But I was so glad that — again, I thank my parents — I found the resources in God’s help.

I learned so much from those firemen. ... It was a devastating time in New York. It’s hard to describe, it was so surreal. But I think I was supposed to be there.

Q: What brought you to Charleston from New York?

A: We hate snow. We were sick of the cold and my whole family had moved south years ago. Well, one more sister is left in Manhattan; she’s never leaving. But we all wanted warmer weather, so Thomas and I started looking around for a place that matched us.

We’re both theater people. We met doing theater together. So we needed to have that, and culture, and restaurants — we love restaurants — the beach. It had everything we were looking for. We didn’t know how it would be, but we never looked back. This is home now.

Q: You worked on “The Sunset Years” in collaboration with your husband. Whose idea was it to write a comedy when it seems like a large chunk of your work is based on the struggles that come with grief?

A: I write all this heavy stuff. I’ve been writing all these articles on grief, and speaking on grief, and working with grief.

We both love theater. We both acted and directed in theater, and Thomas has acted here in Charleston a lot. So I decided one day that I wanted to write something happy and fun because I’m a happy, fun person. I decided to write a play ... and he said, “Well, I’ll write it with you.” And I thought, “I don’t know, this might be dangerous,” because I’m used to writing by myself. So we just started that day, and nine months later it was like we gave birth to “The Sunset Years.”

Now we’re three-quarters through a second play, and I don’t think we’ll ever stop.

I love writing with him. He’s so funny. Here I was worried that we’d end up fighting, and we ended up laughing. It was just a great treat.

Q: You have this history of writing books. How would you compare that to writing of plays?

A: It’s very different. I do love to write dialogue, and even in my books and articles you’ll always see dialogue. But the thing that’s different is that you get to take a character and make it real.

Q: Do you feel comfortable saying what your next play will be about?

A: Yes. It’s a fish-out-of-water comedy about what happens when a college freshman from Kansas moves in with a dysfunctional Italian family in Queens. And you can just picture it from there.