This Grief Awareness Week, let’s talk about grief, its impact, and how to offer support.
This week is Grief Awareness Week, a reminder that grief is a universal human experience, yet it’s often carried quietly and alone.
Grief isn’t rare or isolated — it touches almost everyone. Research shows that for every death, as many as nine people may be deeply affected by the loss through relationships, roles, or shared history.
What is grief, really?
Grief is more than bereavement after a death. It can include the loss of:
- identity
- health or abilities
- relationships
- a future we once expected
A little-noticed form of grief is the loss of ability, relationships, and identity due to mental illness.
How does grief show up?
Grief isn’t only emotional — it can affect the body and mind:
- fatigue
- appetite changes
- disturbed sleep
- difficulty concentrating
For most people, the intensity of these symptoms eases with time. But for some, grief persists and disrupts daily life in enduring ways. Clinically, this persistent experience is known as Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD).
How long does grieving last?
Many people expect grief to follow neat stages — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance — and to be “over” within a specific period. However, the five-stage model was developed from work with people facing terminal illness, not bereavement, and doesn’t reflect the lived experience of most grieving people.
There’s no universal timeline that marks the end of grief just because a funeral has passed, or we’ve reached anniversaries. Even years later, reminders and life changes can bring grief to the surface again.
It’s not usual for the bereaved to lose friendships, move home, have a career change, and need to start a whole bunch of things all over again. The death itself is not the only thing that happens. It’s the first loss of many, and it has a domino effect.
Do we all need therapy for grief?
Most people don’t require professional therapy to grieve. However, research suggests that a meaningful minority — often estimated in clinical studies at around 7% of bereaved people — may experience intense grief that doesn’t lessen over time and interferes significantly with daily life.
When grief becomes prolonged or complicated, therapeutic support can help people:
integrate their grief into life
build routines that allow daily functioning
reconnect with joy and meaning
Therapeutic approaches can include cognitive behavioural therapy, trauma-focused work, and guided emotional witnessing. The goal isn’t to “take grief away,” but to make it manageable while supporting life beyond the pain.
Grief awareness: How can we support someone who is grieving?
Grief involves all of us — not just those who are grieving. But about half of Irish people struggle to know what to say or how to support someone who is grieving.
We don’t need to medicalise grief or assume a counsellor is always required. Instead, we can offer simple, human acts of support, such as:
making someone a cup of tea
helping with a task
sending a thoughtful message
inviting them for a walk
These actions communicate something powerful: You are not alone.
This Grief Awareness Week is an invitation to bring grief out of the shadows — to talk about it, remember those we’ve lost, and offer and accept support without stigma.
