Grief vs Bereavement

Generally, people tend to see grief and bereavement as the same thing. My name is Alyssa Griffey and I'm manager of bereavement services at St. Gray Hospice. I'm going to share with you a little bit more about how grief and bereavement are different. It's sometimes hard to tell those differences between when someone is grieving and someone who is suffering through bereavement. Grief is an emotional reaction to that loss, and bereavement is the time period that a person can grieve and mourn that loss.

Here are some of those differences to know one emotion versus time. Emotion is where the reaction to the loss plays a big role. You can grieve weeks to even years. Bereavement ends when the initial part of suffering and mourning ends. You can be in bereavement for the time that it takes you to process the grief and the mourning. Second stages of grief versus bereavement cycles is the next thing that we really like to pay attention to. We come across those five stages of grief where not all may be experienced, but they all lead to a healthy resolution.

A bereaved person will experience those stages when dealing with grief, but will also experience changes throughout that time period that could include mood, emotions, feelings, all as a part of that cycle of bereavement. And third, grief is a very, very natural response to bereavement. So I think it's really important that we look at these aspects and compare those differences between grief and bereavement, and we focus on that as a whole.