Bereavement

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Summary

Bereavement is the period of grief and mourning after a death. When you grieve, it's part of the normal process of reacting to a loss. You may experience grief as a mental, physical, social or emotional reaction. Mental reactions can include anger, guilt, anxiety, sadness and despair. Physical reactions can include sleeping problems, changes in appetite, physical problems or illness.

How long bereavement lasts can depend on how close you were to the person who died, if the person's death was expected and other factors. Friends, family and faith may be sources of support. Grief counseling or grief therapy is also helpful to some people.

NIH: National Cancer Institute

Start Here

• Bereavement and Grief (Mental Health America)
• Coping with Grief: Life after Loss (National Institutes of Health) Also in Spanish
• Grief, Bereavement, and Loss (National Cancer Institute) Also in Spanish
• Seeking Help and Support for Grief and Loss (American Cancer Society) Also in Spanish

Related Issues

• Bereaved Employee: Returning to Work (American Hospice Foundation)
• Complicated Grief (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research) Also in Spanish
• Coping With Grief and Loss (National Institute on Aging) Also in Spanish
• End of Life: Suicide Grief (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research) Also in Spanish
• Grief And Bereavement (American Cancer Society) Also in Spanish
• Helping a Grieving Parent (American Hospice Foundation)
• Writing a Condolence Note (American Hospice Foundation)
• You Know You Are Getting Better When... (American Hospice Foundation)

Clinical Trials

• ClinicalTrials.gov: Bereavement (National Institutes of Health)
• ClinicalTrials.gov: Grief (National Institutes of Health)

Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)

• Article: Support for parents and families after stillbirth and neonatal death.
• Article: Factors of prolonged-grief-disorder symptom trajectories for ICU bereaved family surrogates.
• Article: Why Prospective Bereavement Counseling Is Crucial for Peace-Finding After Loss.
• Bereavement -- see more articles

Find an Expert

• Compassionate Friends

Children

• Children and Grief (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry) Also in Spanish
• Helping a Child Cope with the Loss of a Loved One (American Cancer Society) Also in Spanish
• Helping Your Child Deal with Death (Nemours Foundation) Also in Spanish

Teenagers

• 5 Ways to Cope When a Loved One Dies (Nemours Foundation) Also in Spanish
• Death and Grief (Nemours Foundation) Also in Spanish

Older Adults

• Grief and Loss as Alzheimer's Progresses (Alzheimer's Association)

Patient Handouts

• Grief (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish