What is a Normal Grieving Process?

By John M Grohol PsyD
February 21, 2007

I know you all read our news stories like clockwork (rrrrright!), but I wanted to bring this one about what constitutes “normal” grief to your attention. I don’t know what normal is either, but the researchers in this article attempted to help people get some idea of what grief looks like for the general population:

Acceptance was the most frequently endorsed item and yearning was the dominant negative grief indicator from one to 24 months postloss. In models that take into account the rise and fall of psychological responses, once rescaled, disbelief decreased from an initial high at one month postloss, yearning peaked at four months postloss, anger peaked at five months postloss, and depression peaked at six months postloss.

The main take-away is that after 6 months, all of the grief indicators are declining. So if you’re still going through some significant emotional upheaval about a loss after 6 months, that might be a time to start to consider talking to a mental health professional, grief counselor, a clergy member, or a therapist about the loss.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues, and the intersection of technology and psychology since 1992.