Grief is a natural response to loss–both universal and personal. Individual grief can vary depending on the nature of the loss and can be caused by the death of a loved one, ending of a relationship, loss of a job or independence, diagnosis of an illness, etc.
Grief is a strong, sometimes overwhelming emotion that we can’t usually prepare for. Understanding it and processing it can be difficult too. It can last for weeks, months, or years and usually, the pain is relieved as time passes.
4 Main Types of Grief
There are four main types of grief:
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Acute grief occurs right after a loss, this grief dominates a person’s life and mostly focuses on the person who died.
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Integrated Grief is the result of how we adjust to the loss. When someone experiences this they connect thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are changed to allow them to remember and honor the person who died, grief finds a place in their life.
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Complicated Grief happens when something interrupts how we are adapting to our grief, and prolongs the mourning period significantly. You may struggle to see a way to move forward and hold onto hope that that person is going to come back to you. You may find yourself shutting down, losing touch with family/friends, etc., or notice that you isolate yourself, you see a decrease in your self-esteem, and feel like you have lost your path in life.
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Disenfranchised grief is non-typical grief that is not widely accepted as things that people typically understand as grief such as multiple miscarriages, IVF that is not successful, or the loss of a parent or partner after a divorce. It is a grief that is not always looked at or understood by others as a typical loss, but it is a significant loss to the person experiencing it.
The Stages of Grief
There is a pattern to grief that usually follows stages or periods involving different emotions.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross originally came up with a grief model written about people dying, not about people grieving, but has since applied the principles to the grieving process after a loss.
The 5 stages of grief under the Kubler-Ross model are:
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Denial. After the death of a loved one, it’s common to be in denial for a period of time. This helps you temporarily not feel the overcoming emotions that come with grieving.
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Anger. Some people find they are angrier than normal towards themself or others.
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Bargaining. When you start to move out of denial and anger you might find yourself asking “what if” or coming up with “if only” scenarios.
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Depression. This is the “quiet” stage of grieving where you experience overwhelming feelings of sadness. The emotions feel heavy.
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Acceptance. At this stage, you start to accept what has happened and find ways to move on.
When grief overwhelms you to the point that it interferes with daily life, it can be a disorder known as prolonged grief disorder. The symptoms of this include:
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Non-stop yearning for the deceased
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Difficulty accepting the death
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Emotional numbness or intense emotional pain
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Feeling like you’ve lost part of yourself
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Withdrawal from social activities, people, and things you typically love
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Depression
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How Therapy Can Help
Seeking therapy during or even after you experience grief can help you deal with and prevent anxiety and depression. Therapists like myself can help come up with a personal plan to overcome grief. Oftentimes, this could mean using a variety of approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
With CBT therapy I can help you identify negative thought patterns, explore your feelings related to grief and loss or other helpful thoughts to address your mood and behavior. This therapy can help you learn strategies of reframing, targeting behaviors, and reinterpreting.
Every person manages grief in their own way, so the outlook for people dealing with grief can look different from one person to the next.
Grief doesn’t follow the same path and healing is unique to your individual circumstance, but therapy can play a key role in the healing process.
As you experience the range of emotions that come with grief, be patient with yourself. You will likely have moments where you feel great, followed by times you wonder if you’ll ever feel yourself again. But there are ways to improve your self-esteem! Trust yourself to heal, because it will happen in time. Be gentle with yourself and get help if you need it.