My 2026 Reads

The Grieving Brain

“Through my years of study and research, I eventually realized the brain has a problem to solve when a loved one has died. This is not a trivial problem. Losing our one-and-only overwhelms us, because we need our loved ones as much as we need food and water.”

I was immediately sucked into how Dr. O’Connor writes and how she conveys the education in her research. She highlights the science behind what the brain actually experiences when grieving a loved one. The background provided on John Bowlby’s attachment theory was especially helpful to understand this. We equate attachments with comfort and safety, and when we lose those attachments, we lose that essential connection that aids our survival. Additionally, our brain is forced to adjust its expectations when someone dies or we lose them outside of death (ex: breakup). We are wired to make predictions and the brain has to work when those predictions are no longer what they used to be. Developing new predictions via new lived experiences takes time. “Resolving incompatible beliefs interferes with learning” (p. 60) which accounts for why it takes so much time. Dr. O’Connor talks about how time doesn’t heal, but new experiences do. A resilient grieving process incorporates both acknowledging the loss and also maintaining daily present day experiences. She states “On the waves of grief, eventually acceptance rises more often, and distress falls off in intensity without completely disappearing” (p. 75). The key to coping well and engaging in a resilient process vs. a complicated one is the flexibility of going from tending to day-to-day to addressing grief related stressors.

She incorporates many other research studies into her book, including why Kubler-Ross’s famous 5 stages of grief aren’t applicable to the range of grief experiences that can show up in our lives today. There is other rich research about the science behind avoiding and rumination, common behaviors involved in grieving. They are both there to aid us, but can lead to complicated grief if not acknowledged and managed. What feels most important that Dr. O’Connor highlights is that there is no one response or path that creates the “perfect” grieving process. It is often an oscillation of things, and it is never over. Instead, “[r]estoring a fulfilling life may be a better definition, pointing to adaptation, which [she] thinks is more accurate than thinking of grief as being ‘over’” (p. 191). I appreciated her wrap up of how the key to walking through grief is paying attention to the present, remembering the past, and planning intentionally.

Click for more on Dr. O’Connor and this book if interested!