Understanding Grief and Loss: There Is No Right Way to Grieve

Grief is one of the most universal human experiences — and one of the most misunderstood. We often expect it to follow a tidy, linear path, when in reality it moves in waves and looks different for every person. This guide is for anyone grieving, and for the clinicians supporting them through it, including the cultural nuance that Indian grief work specifically requires.

What Grief Actually Is

Grief is the internal emotional and psychological response to loss. Mourning is how that grief gets expressed outwardly — through rituals, conversation, or behaviour. Grief isn't limited to death; it can follow the loss of a relationship, a job, a health status, a pet, or a significant life change. Normal grief can include sadness, numbness, anger, guilt, sleep disruption, and trouble concentrating — and typically fluctuates rather than following a straight line toward "getting over it."

The Stages of Grief — And Their Limits

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's well-known five stages — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — were originally developed to describe the experience of people facing terminal illness, not universal grief. Many find the framework useful as a rough map, but grief rarely moves through it in order, and skipping or revisiting stages doesn't mean you're grieving wrong. A more contemporary framework, the dual-process model, describes healthy grieving as oscillating between loss-oriented experiences (feeling the pain directly) and restoration-oriented activities (re-engaging with daily life) — both a normal, necessary part of healing.

When Grief Becomes Complicated

For most people, grief gradually eases over time, even while never fully disappearing. A significant minority experience complicated or prolonged grief — intense, persistent symptoms that don't ease and significantly disrupt daily functioning, often lasting beyond six months to a year. Risk factors include a sudden or traumatic death, unresolved prior losses, lack of social support, or disenfranchised grief — grief not validated by others, such as the loss of a same-sex partner in an unaccepting environment, or grief following a suicide.

What Actually Helps: Evidence-Based Treatment

Individual and group psychotherapy is well-supported for people experiencing complicated or prolonged grief.

Complicated Grief Therapy (CGT), a structured protocol combining CBT and interpersonal elements, helps process the specific circumstances of loss while supporting adaptation — without requiring someone to "let go" of their bond with the deceased. Maintaining a healthy ongoing connection ("continuing bonds") is now understood as a natural, often helpful part of grieving.

CBT and ACT approaches can help address the guilt, self-blame, and avoidance that often complicate grief.

How to Support Someone Who Is Grieving

Don't rush them toward "moving on" or offer premature silver linings; simply being present is often the most valuable support; check in beyond the immediate aftermath — grief often intensifies weeks or months later, once initial support has faded; and avoid comparing losses or timelines.

Clinical Practice Notes: Grief Counselling in the Indian Context

The following section is written for psychologists and clinical practitioners.

Cultural context isn't optional in grief work. Standard grief models remain clinically useful as internal maps, but weren't built with Indian mourning practices in mind. Structured rituals (prescribed mourning periods, community visitation norms, religious observances) can support healthy grieving when they fit the client, and can also become a source of distress when a client's internal timeline doesn't match the externally prescribed one, or when family expects a faster return to normalcy. A clinically useful early question: is the client's family/community structure functioning as support, pressure, or both simultaneously?

Assessment tools: the Inventory of Complicated Grief and Prolonged Grief Disorder-13 both offer standardised, repeatable measures for initial assessment and tracking.

Disenfranchised grief deserves specific clinical attention in Indian practice — these clients frequently lack the ritual and community support that typically buffers grief, and often carry additional shame or isolation needing direct address.

"Continuing bonds" framing tends to land better in Indian clinical contexts than approaches oriented purely around detachment, and aligns naturally with cultural and religious practices around ancestor connection.

Working with family systems: psychoeducate family members on non-linear grieving timelines; address family conflict that sometimes emerges around "correct" mourning behaviour; with child clients, coordinate with parents on age-appropriate involvement in family mourning practices rather than shielding children entirely, which research suggests is generally unhelpful.

Escalation: refer for psychiatric co-management or closer risk monitoring when grief is accompanied by suicidal ideation, when complicated grief symptoms show no movement after a structured course of treatment, or when grief triggers a major depressive episode requiring pharmacological support.

A Closing Thought

Grief is the price of having loved something deeply. It doesn't need to be fixed or hurried — it needs space, patience, and often, support. Healing doesn't mean forgetting; it means learning to carry the loss differently over time.

If you're grieving, or you support clients through bereavement as a practitioner, explore Manovigyani — connecting clients with verified mental health professionals, and supporting psychologists with WhatsApp-first practice tools.

— Jeena

This article is intended for general educational purposes and does not replace personalised assessment or treatment by a licensed mental health professional. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of self-harm, please reach out immediately: iCall (9152987821), Vandrevala Foundation (1860-2662-345), or KIRAN Mental Health Helpline (1800-599-0019).