What's the right way to grieve? And other big questions about loss
- Georgina Sturmer
- Mar 2
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 4
Do we have to let go? Do we have to 'finish' grieving? Which 'stage of grief' should we be in, and for how long?
I was recently invited on a podcast to talk about grief. The 'Death: A Funny Business' podcast offers a serious but light-hearted (not an easy balance!) insight into death, grief, and what comes next. Click here to check out the show - my interview starts at around 30 minutes into the podcast.
We talked through some BIG questions about loss, and I wanted to continue the conversation here. If you're grieving, or supporting someone who is, I hope this offers you some clarity and comfort.
Where does the idea of 'Five Stages of Grief' come from?
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross developed the ‘Five Stages of Grief’ model to support people who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness. She described five stages in her book 'On Death and Dying' - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These were originally designed as a roadmap for the emotional journey someone might take after receiving a life-limiting diagnosis.
Over time, Kubler-Ross' model was adopted more broadly to describe how we grieve the loss of someone else. It became the most well-known framework for grief.
Is grief really about following five stages?
It’s human nature to want some kind of map when we're navigating something overwhelming. The Kubler-Ross Five Stages model offers a way to understand our own feelings, or the feelings of someone we care about. It also suggests that we will move through grief in a linear way, and eventually come out the other side. That can feel reassuring, as if we might find a light at the end of the tunnel, especially when everything inside us feels chaotic.
The Five Stages model had an important impact on the way we talk about grief. It gave us permission to talk, to reflect, to try to make sense of our feelings.
But there's a downside to the concept of the Five Stages when we think about grief and loss
There’s a risk to any theory that suggests a linear, or a ‘one size fits all’ approach. It can be distressing if our experience of grief doesn't follow this neat progression. If we feel like we have 'skipped' a stage, or if we go round and round in a loop, there's a risk that we might become frightened, embarrassed or distressed. It can make us feel as if we are somehow doing grief 'wrong'. And that's the last thing that anyone needs.
For more on this topic, read my comments in this article for Yahoo.
Are there other ways to understand grief and loss?
Absolutely. The reality is that life doesn’t move in neat and tidy stages. And neither does grief. We will all cope with our own grief in different individual ways. Grief is now viewed as a part of life, rather than a process that we need to undergo or complete in some way. Newer models have emerged that reflect the real, messy, and often non-linear experience of loss.
Do we have to 'finish' grieving? Growing around grief: The Tonkin Model
What if we didn't have to expect that our grief would shrink over time? And instead, what if our grief can exist in the same form for a really long time, or forever, with the knowledge that we can 'grow around' it.
That's the idea behind Lois Tonkin's grief model. Imagine your grief as a ball, surrounded by a circle. The ball doesn't get any smaller. But as time goes on, the rest of your life, grows around it. We can grow and live, without diminishing the memory of the person that we have lost, or feeling guilty about ‘moving on’ in some way.
I love this way of looking at grief because it gives us permission to carry it with us, without feeling guilty. Our grief and our life can coexist.
Moving between Grief and Life, the 'Dual Process' model
Another model that has come along since Kubler-Ross' Five Stages, is the Dual Process model, developed by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut. As the name suggests, this framework talks about two processes. These are two different ways of coping with loss:
Focusing on loss: confronting the pain, remembering the person, feeling the sadness, revisiting memories, denying or avoiding changes
Focusing on restoration: adjusting to life, doing everyday tasks, attending to the admin of loss, distraction, returning to work
As you'll see in this diagram, this model normalises the idea that we move or 'oscillate' between different types of coping. Some days we cry. Some days we cook dinner and reply to emails. Both are part of grieving. Neither is wrong.
This model can be incredibly validating — especially if you find your emotions change day to day (or minute to minute).
This concept is also helpful to understand grief within our relationships. If we are grieving alongside a loved one, we might sometimes find ourselves in different processes from each other, or wishing that the other person was in a different process. What this model tells us is that sometimes we just need the other person to 'meet us where we are'.
Do we have to let go? Staying connected with our lost loved one
Older grief theories emphasise detachment or 'letting go' of our connection with a lost loved one. By contrast, modern grief theory supports the idea of 'Continuing Bonds'. That is, we can maintain a connection with the person who has died — and this continued bond can be healing.
We can feel this continued bond in many different ways. We might think about them, talk to them in our minds, light a candle, wear something of theirs, or honour their memory in small everyday ways. I often compare this to a child who carries a teddy bear when separated from their caregiver. It’s not about living in the past — it’s about finding a way to retain a bond and keep their presence in our lives.
The science of grief: What does the body say?
More recently, insights from neuroscience tell us that our brains and our bodies respond to grief in fascinating and moving ways. I would highly recommend the book 'The Grieving Brain' by Mary Frances O'Connor if you want to learn more about this. She explains how when we lose a loved one 'our neurons still fire every time we expect our loved one to be in the room. And this neural trace persists until we can learn that our loved one is never going to be in our physical world again'. Understanding how our brain processes grief can be really powerful. And something else I have learnt is that the neurons in our brain respond in certain ways because of the relationships that we have. And this continues after a loved one has died.
Another example of this is 'microchimerism'. It’s a phenomenon where, during pregnancy, cells from the baby cross the placenta and remain in the mother’s body. These cells can remain for years - even decades. Our understanding of the science is still evolving, but in some cases, these cells have been found in the mother’s heart, brain, and lungs.This means that even after a child has died, a mother quite literally carries part of them inside her body.
When we know all of this, it makes sense that grief can feel lifelong. It stays in our brains and in our bodies. And that's ok. It's part of our story.
Why do some people grieve differently from others?
There's a short answer to this one, and a really really long answer to this one. I'll try to meet somewhere in the middle (and maybe I'll save the much longer answer for another blog)
The short answer, is that we are all different.
The longer answer is that, from the moment we are born, we start figuring out who we are through our relationships with other people. How we connect, love and care for other people. And how we can elicit attention and affection from others. This forms our attachment behaviours, or defence mechanisms, and much more. And it informs how we respond to love, loss, and separation. It determines how resilient we are when we are faced with a loss. Whether we become plunged into grief, and totally preoccupied by it. Or whether we are disengaged or dismissive about our grief. Or somewhere in between.
And this all manifests in different ways. We might feel overwhelmed by our emotions, and incapable of imagining things being different. We might feel a sense of emptiness and disconnection. These are all natural and normal responses. The trick is to notice whether we really feel like we are coping. Or whether we might need some extra support to absorb or unlock our feelings. And that's where therapy can be enormously helpful.
If you'd like to hear more from me on grief, click here to view all my blog posts on this topic.
Keen to explore more? In counselling, we can take a deeper look at how you feel about yourself. Click here to contact me, or click here to book a 30-minute introductory call.
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