Completing the Tasks of Mourning and the Dual Process Model of Grief

This blog is the third of a series of five blogs looking at the experience of grief and loss. Many people seek out counselling for grief, or look to access bereavement counselling after the death of a loved one – including after pregnancy loss. Others find speaking with a therapist to be helpful after experiencing other forms of loss, such as the feelings and challenges associated with loss of a job, retirement, children leaving home, or the loss of health or even losing hope. Counselling and psychotherapy can help with making meaning of grief. In this blog, I hope to bring two models that help to explain the grief process - the “growing around grief” model and the “tasks of mourning” model. These models do not take away grief, but they can give some validation to your feelings, as well as provide structure and containment to support with making meaning of your own grief.

In the first blog, we considered some of the forms grief can take, as well as the impact and effects of loss for many people.  In the second blog of the series, we looked closely at the Kübler-Ross model or framework often used to help explain grief and loss. In this blog, we’re looking at a couple of other models of grief that are often used to help provide some structure to making meaning of the grieving process. We’ll explore the Tasks of Mourning Model proposed by William Worden (2018) and also take a look at the Dual Process Model of Grief was developed by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut (1999).

The importance of self-compassion as you make more meaning of your grief

As with our previous blogs, take your time and pace yourself as you read. Listening to yourself and what you feel and need is important if you are grieving or processing loss, whether that’s recent or loss you faced many years ago. My invitation is to be kind and compassionate to yourself if this blog evokes any challenging feelings for you.

Grief and loss can feel overwhelming and confusing

The various theoretical models from counselling theory can help to make some form of meaning of grief

Tasks of Mourning Model

Let’s consider the model of grief proposed by William Worden (2018), professor of Psychology at Biola University California. This model was developed by Worden in 2008, and suggests that there are four tasks to accomplish during the process of mourning. Completion of these tasks of mourning can lead to a sense of equilibrium.  Worden is clear there is no set order in which the tasks are to be completed in and that revisiting certain tasks many times may be part of the grief process for some people. 

Task 1 - To accept the reality of the loss

Accepting that a loss has happened is a task of mourning, according to Worden. Rituals such as funerals can be helpful in acknowledging the reality of the loss. With other forms of loss this could be to recognise that losing our job, losing our status, losing our income, losing contact with family is a significant loss in our life. It may even be to recognise a past loss that happened years ago that you have not yet acknowledged. 

Accepting the reality can be a task that you undertake or participate in time after time. Clearing out a loved one’s possessions after their death, visiting their grave or scattering their ashes, seeing the empty space in the bed each night, celebrating a birthday without them. These can all be ways and tasks that ask for accepting again the reality of your loss.

Task 2: To process the pain of grief.

This task asks us to find space and ways for the pain associated with loss. This may involve speaking with others and crying. Processing pain may also include the expression of other difficult emotions such as anger and guilt. Again, this is not a one-off task for most people. Revisiting grief and loss to process is so often part of the grief journey. It’s not uncommon for people in counselling to have a need to re-tell stories, narratives and memories they’ve previously spoke about. That can be helpful if it is a way they can continue to process the pain of grief.

Task 3:  To adjust to a world without

This third task requires adaptation as we adjust to the change we experience as a result of our loss. It’s a learning to live with grief, and a learning to live without our loved one. To live without the sense of identity we once had. It may mean taking on different roles within our family, conducting a myriad of practical arrangements including financial decisions and also adapting socially. Again, we can see this task as a process, rather than a one-off event.

Task 4: To find an enduring connection. 

In this task, we consider how to stay emotionally connected with whatever or whoever we have lost without the loss preventing us moving on in our own life. In this task, memories, thoughts and feelings connected with what or whom we have lost can become significant. In this task, we remember, rather than forget.  This allows us to connect with other aspects of our life.  Again, in counselling, this can take the form of saying a person’s name, or re-visiting precious memories and sharing these with a therapist to express out loud the enduring connection, and the ways in which a loved one has changed and impacted you.

The importance of time to process and self-compassion. 

Before we move onto consider one more model of grief, let’s pause at this point in the blog to check in again. Take a moment to consider how you are?  How do you feel just now? And what questions or thoughts have arisen for you as you’ve read about the Tasks of Mourning Model.  Aim to notice your thoughts and feelings without judgements or self-reproach. This is important. Whilst learning about theories and models of grief can be helpful, they can also throw up feelings and sensations we hadn’t expected or anticipated. Take a moment to be compassionate, kind and gentle with yourself.  What do you need just now? Give yourself the time and the space, with kindness, to allow yourself to feel your feelings, and to find comfort in ways that feel right for you. If that means abandoning the blog for now, so be it.

Thinking, reading and talking about grief models can throw up a range of feelings and responses

Take your time

If you do feel ready to read on, then, let’s take a look at the final model for making meaning of grief that we are going to cover in this blog - the Dual Process Model of Grief. 

The Dual Process model of grief

Another model for making sense of the loss and grief process is known as the Dual Process Model, developed by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut in 1999. It helps to convey a sense of fluctuation and change that many people who experience grief describe – the sense that you feel distraught one day, and then more hopeful the next, only to find yourself sobbing and consumed with emptiness the next.  The Dual Process Model describes grief as a process of moving between two different ‘orientations’:  loss orientation and restoration orientation.

Grief is seen as a process of shuttling back and forth between these loss and restoration orientations.  In this model, grief is not understood as a linear or a one-way journey through a series of stages.  The Dual Process Model considers that people move in and out of different forms of grief, often over many years, almost as if they are zig-zagging back and forth between moving forwards and looking back. With this model, it is important to recognise that both orientations are important pats of the grieving process.

The Dual Process model helps us to understand why grief can feel so disorientating, and sometimes we feel like we’re getting on with life, and sometimes we feel like we’re back to square one

The path through grief rarely feels straight forward.

Let’s consider these two different orientations, then, in the Dual Process model.

Loss orientation

Loss orientation refers to a focus upon painful emotions connected with loss, and a focus on what or who has been lost. You may yearn for the person or thing you’ve lost. You may find yourself remembering and reminiscing. You may imagine what the person would say if they were still here. You may yearn for things to be as they were “before”. You’re likely to experience a range of emotions including loneliness, sadness, fear, pain and anger.

Restoration orientation

Restoration orientation refers to a focus upon the changes and practical challenges you need to face to continue with life. It can provide a state where you gain some respite from the loss-oriented work.  That might mean finding distraction that takes your focus away from your grief, or even living in denial of your grief. Restoration orientation may also include doing new things, and trying out new roles and relationships. 

Shuttling between the two orientations

I like the Dual Process model as a way to make meaning of grief as it helps to show, in a simple way, the ways that people so often shuttle between loss and restoration orientations. If a person was fixed and stuck in one of the two positions - they are likely to face challenges. To be only in the loss would be agonising. To be only “business as usual” and forward facing would be to miss the chance to feel, connect and process the loss. There is a need to go back and forth, and that’s okay. But people often feel guilty when they find they are in one of the positions - its usual and common for people to spend varying amounts of time in both loss and restoration orientations.

Your grief experience? 

And so, as we come to the end of this blog, consider what grief feels like for you? How do you make meaning or sense of your experience of loss? Does it help to have some sort of theoretical framework to provide a structure that gives meaning? Or does this feel far too abstract, and a world away from your visceral raw pain of grief. There are no right or wrongs here, no best way to approach or navigate grief. Your grief is unique to you. Finding ways to give voice and expression to your own feelings of loss is one of the ways that counselling can be helpful for anyone experiencing loss, bereavement or grief.  In future blogs, we will look at two more theoretical frameworks for making meaning of grief, before considering support for the experience of loss and grief.

Next steps?

If you have been impacted by any of the themes or topics in this blog, please reach out for support.  One of the ways you can do this is by speaking to a the bereavement charity, Cruse via their volunteer run helpline. You can also speak to your GP, or consider bereavement counselling or therapy for grief.

If you’re interested in scheduling a free intro call to ask any questions you might have about starting counselling to explore your grief and get therapeutic support as you grieve, I welcome you making contact with me, Claire Law.

I’m a BACP Senior Accredited Psychotherapist offering professional counselling and psychotherapy in Preston, Lancashire and online for adults based in the UK.

I offer a simple, no-pressure approach to people who are considering counselling for grief - and can chat through how I work, and to share with you my availability for new clients for either:

• In person grief counselling at my therapy room in Preston.

• Online grief counselling via MS Teams.

References:

Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying. Macmillan.

Stroebe, M., & Schut, H. (1999). The dual process model of coping with bereavement: Rationale and description. Death Studies, 23(3), 197–224

Worden, J. W. (2018). Grief counseling and grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner (5th ed.). Springer Publishing Company.