TYPES OF GRIEF – (David Kessler, 2021)

Delayed – Grief that we don’t feel in the moment because it’s unsafe or we’re in survival mode.

Disenfranchised – Any grief we judge or minimize.

Ambiguous – Grief that’s hard to see.

Inconclusive – There is nobody to grieve. There is hope. It breeds conspiracy theories.

Complicated – When painful emotions of loss don’t improve with time and are so severe that you have trouble resuming and or creating your life.

Collective and Public -When we grieve an event or public figure as a group.

Traumatic – Combines trauma with bereavement or grief responses.

Masked – Grief that is presented in another way, and the resulting feeling is a response to grief.

Anticipatory – The grief that comes before a death.

Cumulative – When someone experiences multiple losses during a short period and or unattended grief that builds up.

Secondary Loss – The other losses that accompany grief and the primary emotional response.

These are just a handful types of grief that you will come across. Our grief is as unique as our fingerprint.