People usually experience grief when they lose someone close to them including those listed below.

• • Loss of a close friend
  • Death of a partner
  • Death of a classmate or colleague
  • Serious illness of loved ones
  • Relationship breakup
  • Death of a family member
    However, it is important to understand that it is not only the loss of a person close to us that we can experience grief for. Subtle or less obvious losses can also cause strong feelings of grief, even though those around you may not understand your grief feelings. Some examples include:
  • Leaving home
  • Illness/loss of health
  • Death of a pet
  • Change of job
  • Move to a new home
  • Graduation from school
  • Loss of a physical ability
  • Loss of financial security

Stages of Grief

An important part of the healing process is allowing oneself to experience and accept all feelings that arise during the grieving process. The following are five stages of grief and were developed by ElisabethKübler-Ross. Whilst not everyone going through grief experiences all five stages here, or in this exact order, these stages are commonly experiences. The person may bounce between the stages, even more than once.

• Denial, numbness, and shock: This stage serves to protect the individual from experiencing the intensity of the loss. It may be useful when the grieving person must take action (for example, making funeral arrangements). Numbness is a normal reaction to an immediate loss and should not be confused with “lack of caring”. As the individual slowly acknowledges the impact of the loss, their denial and disbelief regarding the loss will lessen.
• Bargaining: This stage may involve frequent thoughts about things that could have been said or done prevent the loss from having occurred. People can become preoccupied about ways that things could have been better e.g., “If only I did not have that argument with them before they died”, or “If only I saw them at the hospital more while they were sick”. If this stage is not properly resolved, strong emotions of regret or guilt may interfere with the healing process.
• Depression: This stage of grief occurs in some people when the reality of the true extent of the loss has occurred. Signs of depression may include sleep and appetite disturbances, a lack of energy and concentration, and crying spells. A person may feel loneliness, emptiness, isolation, and self-pity. For some people, the depressive symptoms can be sub-clinical, while for others these depressive symptoms can turn into a clinical depression. Click here for more information about clinical depression.
• Anger: This reaction usually occurs when an individual feels helpless and powerless. This can then result in the grieving person looking for someone to blame e.g., “if the ambulance personnel only came sooner, they would still be alive”. The survivor can also be angry at themselves for not having done or said something before the person passed. This can also turn inward as guilt. Anger can also come from a feeling of abandonment through the loved one’s death e.g., being angry at the deceased loved one for having ‘left’ them. An individual may also be angry at a higher power or toward life in general for the death.
• Acceptance: In time, an individual may be able to come to terms with the emotional pain from the loss and accept the fact that the loss of the person in their physical body has occurred. Healing can begin once the loss becomes integrated into the individual’s set of life experiences.

Unrelieved Grief

Grieving is a personal and highly individual experience. How a person grieves varies for many reasons including differences in personality (e.g., how one thinks) and coping style, your life experiences, your faith, and of course the nature of the loss. The grieving process takes time. Some people find it extra challenging to move through the grieving process. This is where the person may experience unresolved grief. There is no definite point in time or a list of symptoms that define unresolved grief. Unresolved grief lasts longer than usual for a person’s social circle or cultural background. It may also be used to describe grief that does not go away or interferes with the person’s ability to take care of daily responsibilities.

Unresolved grief tends to be more common in people who:

• Are unsure how they feel about the person they lost.
• Have a negative opinion of themselves (low self-esteem).
• Feel guilty about the loss, such as people who think they could have prevented a serious accident or death.
• Think the loss was a result of unfairness, such as losing a loved one as a result of a violent act.
• Experienced the unexpected or violent death of a loved one. People who experience a traumatic loss are at risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• Experience a loss that others might not recognize as significant, such as miscarriage.How people express unresolved grief varies. People may:
• Act as though nothing has happened or they may refuse or avoid talking about the loss.
• Become consumed bythe memory of the lost person where they may not be able to talk or think about anything else.
• Become overly involved with work or a hobby as a way to distract themselves.
• Increase their consumption of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, or prescribed medicines.
• Become overly concerned about their health in general or about an existing health condition and see a doctor more often than usual.
• Become progressively depressed or isolate themselves from other people.People with unresolved grief who do not seek treatment are more likely to develop complications such as depression as a result of grieving.

Psychological Treatment for Grief