The Dual Process Model of Grief: Moving Between Loss and Life
Updated: Sep 4
Have you ever had a day when you felt like you were beginning to adjust to life after a loss, only to be suddenly overwhelmed by grief again?
Perhaps you spent the morning dealing with practical responsibilities, went to work, or laughed with a friend. Then, something unexpectedly brought your loved one to mind, and for a moment it felt as though the loss had happened all over again.
This back-and-forth can be confusing. You might wonder whether you are avoiding your grief when you focus on everyday life, or whether you are somehow going backwards when the sadness returns.
The Dual Process Model of Grief offers one way of understanding this experience. Developed by researchers Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut, the model suggests that people often move between loss-oriented coping, which involves responding to the emotional reality of the death, and restoration-oriented coping, which involves adapting to the changes that come with living without the person who died.
Rather than seeing grief as a series of stages that must be completed, the model recognizes that coping can involve movement between these different ways of responding to loss (Stroebe & Schut, 2021).
What Is the Dual Process Model of Grief?
Grief affects more than our emotions. A significant death can change our routines, responsibilities, relationships, sense of identity, and expectations for the future.
The Dual Process Model suggests that coping involves responding to both sides of this experience.
Loss-oriented coping involves turning toward the loss itself. This might include remembering the person who died, feeling sadness or longing, thinking about the circumstances of the death, looking through photographs, or acknowledging meaningful anniversaries.
Restoration-oriented coping involves responding to the changes that life now requires. This might mean returning to work, managing responsibilities that someone else once handled, developing new routines, reconnecting socially, or gradually thinking about what life might look like in the future.
These two processes are not necessarily separate or clearly defined. In fact, recent research suggests they can overlap and become intertwined, particularly during the early period of bereavement (Larsen et al., 2025).
That is part of what makes grief so individual.
Loss-Oriented Coping: Making Space for the Loss
There are times when grief needs your attention.
You might find yourself talking about the person who died, revisiting memories, listening to their favourite music, looking through photographs, or simply sitting with the reality that they are no longer here.
These experiences can be painful, but experiencing sadness does not mean that you are doing grief incorrectly. Remembering someone you love and feeling the pain of their absence are understandable parts of bereavement.
Grief can also bring complicated emotions. Alongside sadness, there may be anger, guilt, relief, loneliness, regret, or even moments of peace. The emotional experience of bereavement does not have to fit neatly into one category.
Restoration-Oriented Coping: Learning to Live With What Has Changed
At other times, your attention may naturally shift toward everything that still needs to be done.
You may need to return to work, take care of children, manage finances, learn responsibilities your loved one once handled, or simply figure out how to get through an ordinary Tuesday.
You may also find yourself doing things that feel surprisingly normal. You might enjoy dinner with friends, laugh at something funny, take up an old hobby, or begin making plans again.
Those moments do not erase your grief.
They are part of living.
Restoration-oriented coping is not about leaving the person behind. It is about adapting to a life that has changed because they are no longer physically present in it.
The Back-and-Forth Is Part of Grief
One of the most helpful ideas in the Dual Process Model is oscillation, the movement between loss-oriented and restoration-oriented coping.
You might spend an afternoon looking through old photographs and feeling completely absorbed in memories. Later that evening, you may find yourself cooking dinner, answering emails, or laughing with a friend.
Another day might look completely different.
You could wake up feeling relatively steady and then be brought to tears by a song, a familiar smell, or an unexpected reminder of the person who died.
Recent research examining the lived experiences of bereaved people found support for both loss-oriented and restoration-oriented processes, while also suggesting that they may overlap rather than occur as two completely separate states (Larsen et al., 2025).
In other words, grief does not necessarily happen in neat compartments.
You can miss someone deeply and still have a good day.
You can be functioning well at work and then suddenly feel devastated.
You can look forward to something while simultaneously wishing the person you lost could be there to experience it with you.
Grief can hold these experiences at the same time.
Why This Matters
There can be enormous pressure around how we are “supposed” to grieve.
Some people worry that they are taking too long. Others feel guilty when they begin enjoying parts of life again. Someone may wonder why they are functioning relatively well while another person in the family is struggling intensely.
The Dual Process Model offers a different perspective. Rather than measuring grief by how consistently sad someone appears, it recognizes that coping with bereavement involves responding to both the loss and the practical reality of life after loss.
There is no universal timetable for when someone should be ready to return to certain activities or feel differently.
At the same time, grief can become particularly difficult when someone feels stuck, overwhelmed, or unable to function over time. Research suggests that psychological interventions can be helpful for people experiencing significant or persistent grief-related difficulties, particularly when symptoms are more severe (Johannsen et al., 2019).
Seeking support does not mean that your grief is wrong or that you should be “over it.” Sometimes it simply means that carrying the loss has become too difficult to do without some help.
How Grief Counselling Can Help
Grief counselling can provide a place where you do not have to choose between remembering your loved one and figuring out how to live your life.
There may be times when it is important to talk about the person who died and the emotions surrounding the loss. At other times, counselling may focus more on the changes you are facing, your relationships, your identity, or the practical challenges of moving through daily life.
The goal is not to erase your connection to the person you lost. It is to support you as you find a way to carry that relationship and the reality of the loss while continuing to live your life.
At Authentic Living London, our therapists understand that grief does not follow a predictable timeline. If you are struggling with the push and pull between missing someone and adapting to life without them, grief counselling can offer a compassionate space to make sense of what you are experiencing.
You do not have to figure it all out at once.
Sometimes, coping with grief means making room for the loss. Sometimes, it means taking the next step in everyday life. Often, it means moving between the two.
And that movement can be part of learning how to live with what has changed.
References
Johannsen, M., Damholdt, M. F., Zachariae, R., Lundorff, M., Farver-Vestergaard, I., & O’Connor, M. (2019). Psychological interventions for grief in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Journal of Affective Disorders, 253, 69–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2019.04.065
Larsen, L. H., Hybholt, L., & O’Connor, M. (2025). Lived experience and the dual process model of coping with bereavement: A participatory research study. Death Studies, 49(6), 743–754. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2024.2355244
Stroebe, M., & Schut, H. (2021). Bereavement in times of COVID-19: A review and theoretical framework. OMEGA—Journal of Death and Dying, 84(2), 477–499. https://doi.org/10.1177/0030222820966928
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