The Four Phases and Tasks of Grief (2025)

Knowing the four stages of grief can help you to understand your feelings of loss. Your reaction to the death of a loved one is deeply personal and everyone experiences their grief response differently.

You might move through the phases quickly, for example, or relatively slowly; you might move through them in a different order, or you might skip a phase or task altogether, or experience one more than once. However you move through the grieving process, just trust that it will be the right way for you as you adjust to the reality of the loss.

This article discusses the four stages of grieving and the feelings you may experience in each stage. It also addresses different types of grieving and the tasks that may help you come to terms with a new state of normalcy.

What Are the Four Stages of Grief?

During the 1970s, British psychiatrist Colin Murray Parkes and psychologist John Bowlby proposed a concept involving four stages or phases of grief:

Shock and Numbness

This phase immediately follows a loss to death. The grieving person feels numb, which is a self-defense mechanism that allows him or her to survive emotionally in the immediate aftermath of loss.

Yearning and Searching

Also referred to as pining, this stage is characterized by the grieving person longing or yearning for the deceased to return to fill the void created by his or her death. Many emotions are experienced and expressed during this time, such as weeping, anger, anxiety, preoccupation, and confusion.

Disorganization and Despair

The grieving person often desires to withdraw and disengage from others and the activities he or she regularly enjoyed during this phase. Having accepted the reality of the loss, the bereaved's feelings of searching and yearning become less intense while feelings of apathy, anger, despair, hopelessness, and questioning increase.

Reorganization and Recovery

In the final phase, the grieving person begins to return to a new state of "normal." Weight loss experienced during intense grieving might reverse, energy levels increase, and interest in enjoyable activities returns. Grief never ends, but thoughts of sadness and despair diminish while positive memories of the deceased take over.

Because everyone grieves in their own way and at their own pace, there is no specific or "usual" amount of time in which people experience/complete these phases. In some cases, receiving bereavement counseling and/or joining a bereavement support group can help a grieving individual move through the phases more fluidly.

Types of Grief

There are many different ways to grieve, depending on the person and their loss. Some of the different types of grieving include:

• Disenfranchised grief: This is also called hidden grief. It may be due to feeling like society won't understand your grief. Examples could be having a miscarriage or a physician losing a patient.
• Complicated grief: This is a response to death that seems significantly different from normal expectations. The grief could be absent, delayed, or chronic (prolonged).
• Anticipatory grief: This is grief experienced when a loved one is expected to die within a short period of time.
• Breakup grief: This refers to the grief experienced at the end of a relationship.
• Traumatic grief: This grief occurs with the sudden, unexpected death of a loved one.

The Four Tasks of Mourning

In 1982, American psychologist William J. Worden published his book "Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy," which delineated his concept of the four tasks of mourning:

Accept the Reality of the Loss

Coming full face with the reality that the person is dead and will not return is the first task a grieving individual needs to complete. Without accomplishing this, you will not be able to continue through the mourning process.

Work Through the Pain of Grief

Your reaction to the death of a loved one is often painful, and you will experience a wide range of emotions, such as anger, guilt, fear, depression, sadness, despair, etc. This task takes time. It requires the bereaved to acknowledge these different emotions and the pain, rather than suppressing or avoiding these feelings, in order to work through them.

Adjust to an Environment in Which the Deceased is Missing

In addition to emotional and/or psychological adjustments, this task might require adopting a role or function that the deceased once performed, and will vary based on the nature of the relationship. For example, if your spouse or partner dies, this task might involve you handling household finances, raising a child alone, finding a job or returning to a career, and more.

Find an Enduring Connection With the Deceased While Embarking on a New Life

While nothing can compel you to completely forget about your relationship with the deceased, the goal is to find an appropriate place in your emotional life moving forward and to begin living again. This might require letting go of attachments so that new, meaningful relationships can begin to form.

Working through these four tasks of mourning can help the bereaved come to terms with their loss and return to a new state of normalcy. Again, involvement in bereavement support groups or seeking grief counseling can help individuals move through these tasks.

Summary

The four stages of grief are shock/numbness, yearning/searching, disorganization/despair, and reorganization/recovery. When you lose a loved one, you may move through some or all of these phases.

You also may experience different types of grief in your life. These can include disenfranchised grief, complicated grief, anticipatory grief, breakup grief, and traumatic grief.

To help come to terms with your grief, certain tasks may help. Bereavement support groups and grief counselors can help as you begin to work through the pain of grief and adjust to a new normal.