GriefFor everyone45 min read

Grief: understanding it, getting through it, and knowing when to ask for help

The five stages do not exist, not falling apart is not coldness, and most people do not need therapy — but around one in ten stays stuck, and for them there is a treatment with demonstrated efficacy.

Reviewed on October 25, 2026
Dr Zayan Al-Falasi, psychiatrist

In short

This text is for a bereaved person and for those around them. It sets out what research has actually established about grief — including that the most famous models do not hold up —, describes the trajectories that are observed, offers a path in seven movements, and clearly distinguishes grief, which is not an illness, from prolonged grief, which is a recognised disorder and is treatable. It also says what does not help, and why offering therapy to every bereaved person is a bad idea.

Topic: Grief
Who it's for: For everyone
Languages: FR · EN · DE · IT · ES · ZH · AR

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The programme

This guide is psychoeducational content. It does not replace a consultation. If you are having suicidal thoughts, if you are thinking of joining the person who died, if you can no longer see a reason to continue, talk about it the same day to your doctor or to a suicide prevention line, and let someone close to you know; in immediate danger, call the emergency services in your country. Suicide risk is higher after a bereavement, particularly in the first months. In the days and weeks after a death, do not suspend your usual care, and treat unusual chest pain as a medical emergency, not as sorrow (see section 5). Grief is not an illness, and the vast majority of bereaved people need neither a diagnosis nor a treatment. A minority, however, remain lastingly unable to live: section 8 explains how to recognise this and what exists for it. Allow forty-five minutes to read.

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1. Before you start

Someone has died, and the world carried on as though nothing had happened. People were very present for a fortnight, then they went back to their lives, and you found yourself alone with something that has no scheduled end.

Perhaps you were told you had to do your grieving. Perhaps someone asked you, six months on, whether things were better, in a tone that suggested the answer had to be yes. Perhaps someone explained which stage you were in.

Three things, straight away.

Grief is not an illness. It is the normal response of a human being to the rupture of a bond. It is painful, it is disorganising, and there is nothing abnormal about it.

There is no timetable. The social markers (six months, a year) by which you are supposed to feel better have no basis. Some people feel better after a few months, others after several years, and that says nothing about the depth of their love.

But there is a minority of situations in which grief becomes lastingly stuck, and where the suffering does not recede at all with time. That situation has a name, it has recently been recognised in the international classifications, and — the most useful information in this whole text — it is treatable, with methods evaluated in controlled trials.

One sentence, if you read nothing else

The aim is not to stop being sad, nor to turn the page, nor to "do your grieving" as though it were a task. The aim is to regain the capacity to live a life that matters, while keeping the bond, not by removing it.

2. Grief, in two minutes

Here is the essential. The rest of the text unfolds it.

Grief is what happens when a central bond is broken. We operate with a permanent internal representation of the people who matter: where they are, what they would say, what we will tell them tonight. That representation does not disappear at the moment of death. It carries on working, and a hundred times a day it collides with a reality that no longer matches.

It is that repeated collision that does the work, and that hurts. You reach for the phone to call them. You buy their yoghurt. You hear the door and for a quarter of a second, it is them.

Grief is the very slow updating of a map of the world in which that person was present everywhere.

What that produces

Waves, not a slope. The pain is not a level that comes down steadily: it arrives in bursts, often set off by a detail, often at the moment you thought you were doing better.

A general disorganisation: sleep, appetite, concentration, memory. Many people think they are losing their minds; they are simply grieving.

And an oscillation, described in section 6, between moments spent wholly in the loss and moments spent on other things. Both movements are necessary.

Hélène, 58

Hélène's husband died fourteen months ago. For the first six months she functioned: paperwork, bank, children, all handled. People found her solid.

It was in the tenth month that it collapsed, when everyone had decided it was over. She stopped seeing her friends, because talking about anything else felt like a betrayal. She has kept the bedroom exactly as it was. She no longer takes the road south, the one they used for holidays.

Hélène is not going through an abnormal grief because she is sad after fourteen months. What should draw attention is something else: she has stopped living, and the pain has not moved a millimetre since the beginning. That is the subject of section 8.

The rest is for members

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What the rest contains

3. The five stages do not exist
4. What follow-up studies show
5. What grief does to the body and the mind
6. The back-and-forth movement
7. What makes a bereavement harder
8. When grief becomes stuck
9. Getting through: the seven movements
10. Movement 1 — The first weeks
11. Movement 2 — Letting the waves come
12. Movement 3 — Going back towards what you avoid
13. Movement 4 — Telling what happened
14. Movement 5 — The bond that continues
15. Movement 6 — Rebuilding daily life
16. Movement 7 — Dates, markers, what comes next
17. Sudden death, violent death, suicide
18. Depending on the bond lost
19. The losses nobody recognises
20. Children and adolescents
21. Guilt, anger, relief
22. For those close by: what to say, what not to say
23. What does not help
24. What you can expect, and when to seek help
25. Frequently asked questions
26. Key points
27. Sources and foundations

Frequently asked questions

How long does it last? There is no normal duration. What matters is not duration but movement: is anything changing, however slowly? A painful grief that evolves is not stuck grief.

Do I have to "do my grieving"? That phrase suggests a task to complete and an end to reach. Neither corresponds to what is observed. You have nothing to complete; you have to get through, and not cut yourself off from your life meanwhile.

I can't cry. Is that serious? No. People who cry little do not fare worse afterwards. The idea of pain that would "come back out" if not expressed is not supported by the data.

Can I keep their belongings, their room, their number in my phone? Yes, with no set deadline. The only useful question is the one in section 14: does it let me live, or does it prevent me from living? A room kept exactly as it was for years is one of the signs of grief freezing over (section 12).

I talk to them. I feel them present. Is that normal? Yes, it is very common, including sensory impressions: hearing their voice, glimpsing their outline. It is not a sign of disorder.

Can I build a new life? Yes, and there is no proper interval. A new relationship does not cancel the previous one, and the guilt that accompanies this step is nearly universal.

Should I see a therapist after a death? Not systematically, and this matters: the data do not support blanket provision. They do very clearly support provision for people whose grief stays stuck. Section 24 gives the criteria.

Will I forget their face? That is a very common fear, and it explains part of the avoidance: people dare not look at photographs for fear of damaging the memory. What happens is the opposite: memories that are looked at and told are preserved better than those that are shut away.

How can I tell whether it is depression, and not just grief? In grief, the pain comes in waves, set off by whatever recalls the person, and moments of pleasure or warmth remain possible in between. In depression, the sadness becomes continuous and spreads to everything, nothing appeals any more, and you judge yourself worthless far beyond the loss. The two can coexist, and a depression that sets in after a death is treated as seriously as any other: section 24 gives the markers.

Can antidepressants or sleeping pills help me? Not for the grief itself: in the trial that tested this, an antidepressant did not reduce grief symptoms, either alone or added to psychotherapy. It does, however, keep its place if a major depressive episode develops as well. A sleeping pill can help you get through a few nights, with a doctor, but taken for months it creates problems of its own. These decisions are made with your doctor, and a current treatment is never stopped on your own.

I couldn't say goodbye. Will I get over it? Most often, yes, even if that absence can make grief harder: the circumstances of the death and a lack of preparation are among the factors that studies associate with grief becoming complicated. What could not be said can be said in another way, in the letter of movement 5 (section 14), and a ritual can be held later, among a few people (section 10). If that missed scene keeps coming back, or if you avoid everything connected with it, talk to a professional about it.

Should a child be taken to the funeral? Most often, yes, if they want to go. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends inviting the child without obliging them, after explaining simply what they will see and hear, and entrusting them during the ceremony to an adult they know well and who is less affected by the loss, so that they can leave if they need to. A child kept away often imagines something worse than the reality, and may later resent having been left out. Our guide Supporting a bereaved child or adolescent explains how to prepare them.

Printable worksheets

The exercises from this programme, as printable PDFs. Members only.

See the plansThe printable worksheets are included with access.

01The first weeksPhase 1 — getting through. Nothing else.
02Letting the waves comePhase 2 — from a few weeks on, and for a long time.
03Coming back to what I avoidPhase 3 — the most powerful lever when grief freezes. With support if that is the case.
04Telling what happenedPhase 4 — only if the memory of the death keeps coming back, or if it is carefully avoided. Preferably with support.
05The bond that continuesPhase 5 — the bond does not break, and that is not pathological.
06Rebuilding daily lifePhase 6 — the least dramatic side, and one of the most decisive.
07Guilt, anger, reliefThree emotions people rarely talk about, and that block many griefs.
08Dates, and when to seek helpPhase 7 — planning ahead rather than bracing. And knowing when grief is stuck.

Every worksheet in one file, with a table of contents.

griefbereavementprolonged grieflossmourning

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