How to Best Support Someone Who Is Grieving

"Loss is the experience of losing someone, whether the relationship was close or complicated. Over a lifetime, loss is inevitable. Grief is the personal response to that loss. While grief is often emotional, it can also be physical, spiritual, cognitive, and social. No two people grieve in the same way. Bereavement refers to the intense period of grief following a death. During this time, people may feel shocked, disoriented, and overwhelmed. Concentration, sleep, appetite, work, and school functioning can all be disrupted."

"Our culture has never been comfortable with death. When someone close to us has a parent, sibling, or child die, we often don't know what to say, let alone how to provide comfort and support. It's hard to witness their pain, and we naturally want to help take their pain away. We generally say "Sorry for your loss," but those words can feel so empty."

Grief manifests across emotional, physical, spiritual, cognitive, and social domains and varies widely between individuals. Loss denotes the experience of losing someone, while bereavement is the intense period of grief after a death that can disrupt concentration, sleep, appetite, work, and school. Mourning encompasses the expressions and practices that process grief and is shaped by family, religion, and culture; mourning does not follow a fixed timeline and grief does not simply end after a year. Cultural discomfort with death often produces awkward or unhelpful remarks; effective support emphasizes presence, honoring the bereaved person's experience, and reassuring them that they are not alone.

Read at Psychology Today