Grief & Loss

The five stages of grief can include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. However, not everyone experiences all of the stages, and the stages don’t necessarily follow a set order. When grieving, expect to work through unpredictable emotional highs and lows, with the pain decreasing in intensity over time.

A seven-stage model of the grieving process after a death might include: shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, depression, an upward turn, reconstruction, and acceptance and hope. But since we all experience grief slightly differently, not everyone will experience these stages in order. Some people may skip certain stages or move through them in a different sequence.

Grief doesn’t follow a set timeline. Depending on the nature of your loss, you might gradually feel better over the span of weeks or months or years. It’s important to be patient and recognize that the healing process cannot be hurried or forced. If you or a loved one continues to feel trapped in intense pain long after a loss, you might be experiencing complicated grief, or prolonged grief disorder. The condition can come with symptoms such as intense loneliness, emotional numbness, and difficulty reengaging with life.

Grief involves the emotional suffering that follows loss. A person might grieve the death of a loved one, the loss of a relationship, or even the loss of a job. Although grief is a natural response to loss, it can affect your ability to eat, sleep, or perform other daily functions. In time, the pain of grief should lessen, although the pain of a significant loss can linger to some degree for years.

Grief counseling, or bereavement therapy, is a therapeutic process that helps a person cope with loss. During counseling, you meet with a mental health expert to work through complex feelings and gain useful insights on how to adapt and proceed with life. A grief counselor might borrow techniques from cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and other therapeutic approaches.