🌊 Psychoeducation: the Dual Process Model
Grief is not a straight line of stages. It is a dynamic oscillation between two orientations — and understanding that changes how you treat yourself.
Before we begin — one important question
Grief can be overwhelming. Have you had thoughts of wanting to be with your loved one who passed away, or thoughts of not wanting to be here?
How are you now? (before the exercise)
0 = no distress · 10 = maximum distress
Why this matters
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's "five stages of grief" were published in 1969. What most people don't know: her research was with terminal patients about their own impending death — not with people who had lost someone. Applying that model to bereavement was an unvalidated extrapolation that persists in popular culture today.
Stroebe & Schut (1999) proposed the Dual Process Model (DPM), the most cited clinical grief framework in contemporary literature. Their central finding: healthy grief is not linear progression through stages but an oscillation between two orientations:
- Crying and feeling the pain
- Yearning for who is gone
- Revisiting memories
- Confronting the loss
- Everyday practical tasks
- New identity post-loss
- Adaptive distractions
- Planning for the future
Bonanno (2004) documented that resilience — the most common grief trajectory — is not the absence of pain but the capacity to oscillate: having genuine moments of pain and moments of normal functioning, alternated.
How are you now? (after the exercise)
Journal — Day 1: My current pattern
Describe a recent moment where you felt you 'should' be more focused on grief — or one where you felt guilty for having a normal moment. What does that say about how you've judged yourself in this process?