Grief Is Not a Problem to Solve

Our culture is deeply uncomfortable with grief. We don't know what to do with it, so we do the wrong things. We rush it. We minimize it. We tell people they'll feel better soon. We give timelines. We confuse “moving on” with “getting over it.”

Grief is not a problem to be solved or a disorder to be treated. It is the price of love. It is what happens when something that mattered to you is gone — a person, a relationship, a version of your life, a future you had planned. The depth of the grief is, in some ways, a measure of the depth of what was lost.

That doesn't mean grief is always straightforward or that everyone moves through it the same way. For some people, grief gets stuck — and that's when therapy can help.

What Grief Actually Is

The five stages model — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance — was never meant to be a linear checklist, and it was developed specifically in the context of people who were dying (and their families), not grief broadly. Most grief researchers now understand grief as a process that is non-linear, highly individual, and rarely as tidy as a stages model suggests.

What we do know about grief:

• It is not primarily about the past — it is about adjusting to a present and future that has been profoundly changed
• It affects the body as much as the mind: fatigue, appetite changes, immune function, sleep disruption are all common
• It comes in waves — often triggered by unexpected reminders, anniversaries, or moments when the loss hits fresh
• It does not diminish love. The relationship with someone who has died continues to evolve, even after death
• There is no correct timeline

When Grief Gets Complicated

Most grief, with time and support, integrates. The loss remains, but it shifts from an acute wound to a scar — present, significant, but no longer consuming. This is not the same as “getting over it.”

Prolonged grief disorder (the clinical term for grief that remains intensely debilitating for an extended period) affects roughly 7-10% of bereaved people. Signs that grief may have become complicated include:

• Intense longing and sorrow that hasn't softened significantly after many months
• Difficulty accepting the loss
• Avoiding reminders of the person as a coping strategy
• Feeling that life is meaningless without the person
• Difficulty trusting others since the loss
• Feeling that part of yourself died with the person
• Difficulty moving forward with life or relationships

Grief can also become complicated when it is disenfranchised — not recognized or validated by others. The grief of a miscarriage. The grief of a relationship that wasn't public. The grief of losing someone to addiction, suicide, or estrangement. The grief of losing a pet. When the people around you don't acknowledge your loss as “counting,” grief has nowhere to land.

What Grief Therapy Actually Looks Like

Good grief therapy is not about pushing someone to “move on.” It's about creating a space where the grief can be fully witnessed — without rush, without minimizing, without the pressure to perform recovery on someone else's schedule.

Practically, therapy for grief might include:

Narrative approaches: Telling the story of the relationship, the loss, and the life that was. Putting words to what was lost. Making meaning — not finding a silver lining, but making sense of the loss within the context of your life and values.

Continuing bonds: Modern grief theory has largely moved away from the idea that healthy grief requires detachment from the person who died. Many people find it helpful to maintain an ongoing internal relationship with the person they've lost — speaking to them, asking what they would have said, integrating them into ongoing life in healthy ways.

Somatic and trauma approaches: When grief is tangled with trauma — sudden death, violence, medical trauma — processing the traumatic elements is often a necessary precursor to accessing the grief itself.

You are allowed to take as long as you need. You are also allowed to ask for help.

Andrew Garnet MSW, RSW

Registered Social Worker with 18 years of experience in Scarborough, Ontario. Andrew specializes in trauma therapy, EMDR, men's mental health, and support for first responders and veterans. Full bio →