Hypnotherapy for Grief and Loss

Grief is a normal response to loss, not something to be cured. Research on bereavement suggests that most people show natural resilience, continuing to function despite significant losses. A smaller group develops prolonged grief disorder, now a formal diagnosis that calls for a clinician. Hypnosis is sometimes used alongside other support for grief, but its role is to make the hardest stretches more bearable, not to take the grief away.

Is what I’m feeling normal?

The range of normal grief is wide. The Wikipedia article on grief summarizes research by George Bonanno showing that grief can appear as sadness, anger, anxiety, laughter or numbness. Crying is a natural part of grieving, and so is not crying. Some healthy people who are grieving do not spontaneously talk about the loss, and the article notes that pressing people to cry or retell the experience can be damaging.

Sensing the person who died is also common enough to have been studied. In a 2008 survey by Amanda Barusch, 27 percent of bereaved respondents reported having “seen” or “heard” the person they lost, and most people who report this say they felt comforted.

Do people really go through five stages?

Not as a reliable rule. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced the five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. A 2003 population-based study found limited empirical support for the model: the order of the stages held up, but acceptance was the strongest response at every point. The article notes that modern research has moved toward more flexible frameworks.

Bonanno’s work describes four trajectories instead:

• Resilience: stable, healthy functioning after the loss.
• Recovery: a period of depression-like or trauma symptoms, usually lasting at least several months, followed by a gradual return to previous levels.
• Chronic dysfunction: prolonged suffering and inability to function, usually lasting several years or longer.
• Delayed grief or trauma: distress that rises months later. Researchers have not found evidence of delayed grief, though delayed trauma appears to be real.

Do I have to let go?

Not completely. The theory of continuing bonds, developed by Dennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman and Steven Nickman, holds that keeping a lasting connection with the person who died is a common part of grieving rather than a failure to move on. It can take the form of sensing their presence, keeping objects that connect you to them, or carrying their qualities into your own life. Maintaining that bond does not generally mean you have failed to accept that the loss is permanent.

When is grief a disorder?

When it stays intense, persistent and disabling well beyond what is expected. The Wikipedia article on prolonged grief disorder notes that it was added to the DSM-5-TR in March 2022 and is also in the ICD-11. The core symptom is intense longing for, or preoccupation with, the person who died, together with signs such as difficulty accepting the death, a disturbed sense of identity, intense emotional pain or numbness, loneliness and a sense that life is meaningless, causing significant distress or impairment.

The two manuals set different time thresholds. A 2024 study by Treml and colleagues summarizes them: the DSM-5-TR requires at least 12 months since the loss, while the ICD-11 requires an atypically long period of at least six months. In a representative German sample, between 4.7 and 6.8 percent of bereaved people met the criteria, depending on which criteria were used.

If your grief matches that description, or if you have thoughts of harming yourself, see a doctor or mental health professional. In the United States, call or text 988 if you are in crisis. Outside the United States, contact your local emergency number or crisis line.

When can hypnotherapy help with grief?

The grief article notes that hypnosis is sometimes used as an adjunct therapy for people who are grieving, citing clinical work by van der Hart and colleagues on hypnotherapy for traumatic grief. As an adjunct, a session might offer:

• A period of rest on days when grief leaves you exhausted.
• A routine for the hardest times, such as evenings or anniversaries.
• Space to revisit a good memory of the person, if you want to, in keeping with the idea of continuing bonds.

Two limits apply. In line with the research above, a session should not press you to relive the loss or to feel more than you do. And it cannot shorten grief or remove it.

Questions to ask yourself at six months

Six months after the loss, take stock: Am I able to manage most of my daily life? Is the longing for the person still so intense that it crowds out almost everything else? Do I feel my sense of who I am has broken? If the answers worry you, that is the point to talk to a professional, rather than waiting for a deadline in a manual.

This article is general information, not medical or psychological advice; talk with a licensed clinician about your own situation.