When grief strikes in adulthood, its impact can be both invisible and overwhelming. Friends offer condolences, time moves on—but what truly helps heal the pain? Beneath the surface of loss lies a complex question: what is the best treatment for adult bereavement? The answer isn’t as straightforward as it seems, and the most effective approach might surprise you.
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What Are the Different Approaches to Grief Treatment?
Adult grief doesn’t follow a single path. Since it’s a deeply personal experience, addressing it requires empathy and flexibility. Various therapeutic approaches can help support individuals through their pain and assist with adjusting to the loss.
Grief Therapy
This form of therapy helps individuals express their emotions, validate their pain, and find meaning in the experience. Ongoing, empathetic support from a therapist encourages acceptance.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT aims to identify and restructure negative or irrational thoughts related to the loss. It’s useful for challenging beliefs that hinder the grieving process and for encouraging self-care and daily functioning.
Emotional Therapy
Focused on the validation and expression of emotions such as sadness, anger, guilt, or confusion, this therapy may include techniques like the empty-chair method or therapeutic writing (e.g., farewell letters, journaling).
Mindfulness
Mindfulness helps individuals stay present and accept their emotions without judgment. It supports emotional regulation and reduces emotional suffering.
In cases where grief becomes prolonged or severely disrupts daily life, it may be considered complicated grief. A specific psychotherapeutic approach known as complicated grief therapy is recommended. This method:
- Shares elements with treatments for depression and PTSD.
- Helps to unblock stuck emotional processes and supports reengagement with life.
Therapy or Counseling
Grief therapy offers a secure, confidential space where individuals can openly express their emotions, explore how grief affects their daily lives, and learn coping strategies.
Therapy addresses various aspects of grief: emotional acknowledgment of the loss, cognitive acceptance, managing guilt, reorganizing daily life, and rebuilding personal identity. It also explores issues such as loneliness, overwhelming responsibilities, and lack of social support, which may increase the risk of complicated grief.
Dysfunctional thinking patterns are identified and adjusted, assertive communication is practiced, and social skills are reinforced to help foster support networks. Practical tools like therapeutic writing, symbolic rituals, and emotional self-regulation exercises support a healthy grieving process.
Because each person grieves differently, therapy is tailored to individual needs. The process may include stages such as accepting the reality of the loss, experiencing emotional pain, adapting to life without the deceased, and building new relationships or projects.
Support Groups
Grief support groups are spaces for people who have lost a loved one. These groups create a shared environment for navigating grief together, offering emotional support and empathy.
They may be facilitated by mental health professionals or operate as peer-led groups managed by individuals with similar experiences.
Groups can be structured in different ways, depending on participant characteristics:
- By type of loss (e.g., parents who’ve lost a child, those who’ve lost a partner)
- By phase of the grieving process
- With or without professional facilitators
Grief support groups are a powerful resource for those seeking a shared, safe, and compassionate environment. Rather than aiming to “move on” quickly, these groups offer space to process grief with care and solidarity.
Mindfulness and Meditation
Mindfulness is a meditative practice that helps people become aware of the present moment. Using techniques such as meditation and observation of thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, individuals cultivate the ability to remain present without judgment.
These tools are especially helpful when coping with the emotional pain of grief and easing the transition after loss.
Grief often brings a mix of difficult emotions. Mindfulness and meditation provide an internal space to witness these feelings with compassion instead of resistance.
To begin practicing, consider:
- Starting with short guided meditations (5–10 minutes)
- Practicing conscious breathing, focusing on the natural rhythm of the breath
- Observing thoughts and emotions without trying to change them
- Being consistent, recognizing that mindfulness strengthens with regular practice
Mindfulness and meditation don’t erase the pain of loss. They offer a way to experience it with more calm and clarity. These practices help individuals stay present with their emotions, allowing grief to unfold with greater compassion and resilience.
Grief Coaching
Grief coaching is a specialized form of support that combines elements of thanatology—the study of death, dying, and grief—with tools from personal coaching.
It provides emotional and practical support to individuals facing a significant loss, helping them adapt and grow through the process.
Grief coaching doesn’t replace other forms of support like therapy or grief groups. It adds a goal-oriented, action-based alternative for those who benefit from structured guidance.
Grief coaching is a meaningful option within the range of grief resources. Through a supportive and practical approach, it helps people move forward with acceptance, clarity, and hope. It’s about learning to live again, with purpose and strength.
Pharmacological Support (Medication)
Medication is sometimes used in specific situations such as complicated grief or when grief is accompanied by clinical depression. In these cases, antidepressants may help ease severe and persistent symptoms.
Medications aren’t a standalone solution to emotional pain. Grieving is a complex emotional process that must be experienced and worked through. Medication should only be part of a broader, integrated approach.
Any use of medication should be supervised by a healthcare professional. Responses to antidepressants vary, and treatment may require dosage adjustments or changes.
Sources
- Aoun, S. M., Breen, L. J., White, I., Rumbold, B., & Kellehear, A. (2018). What sources of bereavement support are perceived helpful by bereaved people and why? Empirical evidence for the compassionate communities approach. Palliative medicine, 32(8), 1378-1388.
- Houlbrooke, R. (Ed.). (2020). Death, ritual, and bereavement. Routledge.