Healthcare, Grief, and Personal Wellness

Healthcare professionals are often expected to maintain emotional composure and deliver high-quality care while carrying their own grief with little opportunity for recognition or processing. Many healthcare workplaces offer limited space for loss to be openly acknowledged or supported. 

GET PERMISSION FROM NYLF: Embed Video: Grieving in an Unsupportive Workplace

Leslie Barber: If you're in a scenario where you can't take time off, I have a little trick. The bathroom will become your best friend. No one can stop you from going to the bathroom. And the bathroom stall was my best friend to take a few breaths, to just close your eyes. Maybe put your hand over your heart and remind yourself that you are present with grief. And that this is really hard to have a good sob or a good cry. IIt's all about energy management. And doing things throughout the day, whether it's a bathroom stop or a water cooler moment with a friend who gets you or maybe you write something on your wrist that just reminds you to take a deep breath or you wear something of the person who you want to keep close to you. There are ways to integrate it in even if you're not able to take the time off. 

Rachelle Bensoussan:  If you're not feeling supported in your workspace or your workspace is not a place where it's safe to openly mourn or to share the impact of your grief in any way, then I think the best way through that is to give yourself as much care and generosity and grace outside of work time so that you're going in with a bit of a buffer. So if your workplace is really unsupportive, then I would probably-- if it were me, I would then make sure, if I finished at 5:00, that I'm not scheduling anything in my evenings. I'm not having large social gatherings. I'm not saying, yes, I can help someone else make dinner. I'm really keeping all of my energy that I might be spending after work on weekends really, really boundaried and for myself, because I'm recognizing that being, in some ways, masking my grief in the workplace costs me so much and is so expensive. And it takes so much energy for me to do that.  So I want to make sure that my evenings are protected, my weekends are protected with really good things, soothing things. Time where I can be with my grief. Time where-- if I want to be with others who really are supportive, loving people that I discern are worthy of my grief, that I'm spending time with them, getting a lot of pet cuddles in, if I have a pet. But that I'm using my non-work time in very intentional kind ways so that I'm going into an unsafe environment, which is work, with just a little bit of padding, a little bit of just kindness and generosity towards myself so I can get through one more day, and then know that I have the evening again for respite. 

It can be helpful to identify private or low-traffic spaces at work where brief emotional regulation or grounding is possible. Empty conference rooms, stairwells, break areas, or even a bathroom stall can offer short, accessible moments to pause, breathe, and reset during demanding shifts.

Identifying Safe Connections in the Workplace

Connection is a component of personal wellness, yet not every relationship or workplace setting feels safe for full emotional expression. In healthcare environments, vulnerability can carry real professional and interpersonal risks, making it important to be intentional about where and with whom emotional sharing occurs.

In this video, Elizabeth Peacock-Chambers, MD, Associate Professor of Healthcare Delivery and Population Sciences at UMass Chan Medical School – Baystate, shares how learning who feels emotionally safe to talk with has supported her ability to process the emotional weight of care. 

Sustaining personal wellness involves recognizing where openness is supported and where it may be met with discomfort or dismissal. Identifying a small number of trusted individuals who can meet emotional expression with understanding can reduce isolation and support resilience.

Coping in the Absence of Psychological Safety

Not all healthcare workplaces provide consistent emotional or psychological safety, and changing roles or settings may not be feasible due to financial, geographic, professional, or personal constraints. While individual coping strategies cannot resolve systemic or organizational barriers, they can support regulation and personal wellness at the individual level. These practices may help reduce cumulative strain and support sustainability while broader cultural and structural change remains needed.

To explore practical tools for regulation and coping, view the GSHP resource on Physiological and Emotional Regulation in Healthcare and access the GSHP resource on Sustained Strategies for Personal Wellness. These resources offer evidence-informed strategies to support both in-the-moment regulation and longer-term personal wellness in grief-exposed care.