Healthcare, Grief, and Personal Wellness
Grief-Specific Strategies for Personal Wellness
Grief-specific wellness strategies address the distinct impact of loss exposure and support intentional processing to reduce cumulative emotional burden and sustain capacity for care.
Participate in Rituals
End-of-life acknowledgment activities, such as attending a patient’s funeral, writing a condolence note, or participating in follow-up with supporters, can provide structured ways to recognize loss and the significance of the relationship. These practices can support emotional processing and meaning-making, helping reduce the burden of unacknowledged grief in grief-exposed care settings.
Integrate Meaning-Making Practices
Meaning-making involves reflecting on loss or difficult experiences to support a sense of purpose, coherence, or values-based understanding. Research suggests that meaning-making processes can support emotional regulation, reduce distress, and contribute to psychological resilience over time.
For healthcare professionals, this may include journaling after a difficult shift, sharing stories with colleagues, or using clinical experiences to inform teaching, mentorship, or advocacy. These practices can support integration of emotionally demanding experiences and may help reduce burnout risk by reconnecting individuals to meaning and professional purpose. Some individuals also draw on spiritual or existential frameworks to support meaning-making in the context of loss.
Use one or two of these prompts to reflect on a meaningful or difficult patient experience:
- What did this patient or situation teach me?
- How did this experience contribute to my professional or personal growth?
- What did I learn about myself, my work, or my team during this case?
- How has this patient or their supporters influenced how I practice?
- What questions or areas of curiosity did this experience raise for me?
- What did this experience clarify about the kind of healthcare professional I want to be?
Meaning-making reflections and rituals can support integration of difficult experiences and help sustain professional identity and purpose in grief- and trauma-exposed care. Even brief, intentional actions, such as lighting a candle or naming a lesson learned, can create space for reflection.
Maintain Relationships Through Continuing Bonds
Continuing bonds refers to the ongoing emotional connection with someone after their death, recognizing that relationships can change rather than end. For healthcare professionals, this may include remembering a patient who had a lasting impact, carrying forward lessons from a mentor, or honoring a personal loss alongside professional caregiving. These internal connections can provide meaning, comfort, and continuity in grief-exposed environments.
Some people also use transitional or symbolic objects, such as a bracelet, badge, or photo, as tangible reminders of connection. These items can serve as grounding touchstones, helping bridge presence and absence and supporting emotional regulation during moments of grief.
Utilize Systems of Support
Many healthcare settings offer built-in support resources, such as employee assistance programs (EAPs), chaplaincy services, mental health counseling, staff wellness teams, and institution-provided wellness apps that are designed to support healthcare professionals navigating stress, grief, and moral distress.
Support can also come from trusted colleagues and team members, including those who cared for the same patient, understand the realities of the work, or are simply good listeners, even if they are outside your discipline or daily workflow. For some, accessing support is easier in steps, starting with a peer and then connecting to formal resources.
If you're in crisis, help is available for free 24/7 in the US by calling or texting the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. More information is available at 988Lifeline.org.
Supporting Well-Being in the Context of Ongoing Loss
Grief-specific wellness strategies recognize that loss is part of the landscape of healthcare. When used intentionally, they can help integrate grief, protect against cumulative strain, and support ongoing connection to meaning, purpose, and the reasons this work matters.