What influences my work

Francis Weller describes grief as something we must make space for rather than push away. His Five Gates of Grief framework helps us see that grief isn't just about death — it includes many losses that shape our lives. The five gates are:

• The loss of someone or something we love — the most familiar and common form of grief, including bereavement, the loss of relationships, jobs, homes, and other meaningful parts of life.
• The places that have not known love — the grief of unmet needs.
• The sorrows of the world — the grief we feel about injustice, environmental destruction, and suffering in the world beyond our personal lives.
• What we expected and did not receive — the loss of dreams, missed opportunities, and the life we thought we would have.
• Ancestral grief — the pain carried from generations before us, including family traumas and cultural histories of oppression or displacement.

This framework acknowledges that grief is everywhere, not just in death. In my work, I help people explore all of their losses — not just the ones most recognised in society — and find ways to honour them. Weller also emphasises that grief is communal; we are not meant to carry it alone. That's why having a space to share and be witnessed is so important.

Martin Prechtel describes grief and love as two sides of the same coin. He calls grief “praise” — a way of honouring what we have lost. In his teachings, grief isn't something to get over, but an act of devotion.

This perspective shifts grief from being a problem to solve into something that needs to be expressed fully. In many cultures, grief is shared through rituals, storytelling, and acts of remembrance. In modern Western culture, we've lost many of these traditions, and grief often feels lonely. Prechtel's work reminds us that grief needs to be witnessed, held, and expressed — not hidden away.

In my work, I help people find ways to engage with their grief, whether through creative expression, rituals, or personal reflection.

Appreciative coaching focuses on strengths, values, and possibilities rather than just problems. It means recognising that even in grief, you still have resources within you.

Appreciative coaching helps shift the focus from just what has been lost to also acknowledging what remains. This might include:

• Identifying what has helped you through past challenges.
• Exploring what still brings meaning or comfort.
• Recognising the ways you are already coping.
• Finding small steps forward that feel manageable.

This approach encourages curiosity and self-compassion, rather than pressure to fix anything. My role is to help people see what's already within them and use that to navigate their grief in a way that feels right for them.

ACT is a psychological approach that helps people accept difficult emotions instead of fighting them. The core idea is that pain is part of life, but suffering comes from struggling against it.

In grief, we often feel conflicted — part of us wants to hold on, while another part knows we have to keep living. ACT helps us make space for grief without it controlling our lives.

Some key ideas from ACT that I use in my work:

• Defusion — learning to step back from painful thoughts instead of getting caught up in them. For example, instead of “I will always feel this way,” shifting to “Right now, I'm feeling deep grief.”
• Acceptance — allowing emotions to be there without trying to push them away.
• Values-driven action — identifying what matters most and taking small steps toward it, even whilst grieving.
• Mindfulness — staying present with grief without getting overwhelmed by it.

David Kessler expanded on the traditional five stages of grief by adding a sixth stage: finding meaning. He emphasises that grief doesn't just have to be about surviving loss — it can also be about integrating it into our lives in a way that brings meaning and connection.

Finding meaning in grief isn't about toxic positivity, finding silver linings or pretending everything happens for a reason. Instead, it's about:

• Continuing bonds — finding ways to keep a connection with the person who has died.
• Creating something from grief — this might be personal growth, helping others, or honouring a loved one's values in your own life.
• Making space for both grief and joy — learning that grief and happiness can exist together, rather than feeling guilty for moving forward.

Resilience isn't about getting over grief — it's about adapting and carrying it in a way that allows life to continue with meaning.

Some of the key ideas I draw from resilience work include:

• Positive psychology — the science of what helps people thrive, even in difficult times. This includes things like gratitude, purpose, and self-compassion.
• Chris Johnstone's resilience training — focusing on practical ways to build emotional resilience, including mindset shifts and coping strategies.
• Character strengths — identifying and using your strengths to navigate grief. Research shows that when we use our strengths, we feel more capable and engaged in life.

Sigmund Freud was one of the first to explore grief in psychological terms. In his 1917 work Mourning and Melancholia, he suggested that grieving is a process of detachment — gradually withdrawing emotional energy from the person who has died and reinvesting it elsewhere.

Freud believed that if this process was interrupted, grief could turn into melancholia (what we might now call complicated grief or depression). His work formed the basis for later theories, but it has also been challenged — many modern grief models focus on continuing bonds rather than detachment.

While some people do naturally distance themselves from grief over time, for many, maintaining a connection with the person who has died (through memories, rituals, or personal reflection) is a healthier way of processing loss.

John Bowlby, known for his work on attachment theory, believed that grief is deeply tied to our earliest relationships.

His theory suggests that:

• The stronger the attachment, the more intense the grief.
• Grief is a natural response to the loss of security that a close relationship provides.
• When we lose someone we are attached to, we go through a process similar to a child searching for a missing parent — protest, despair, and eventually, reorganization.

Bowlby's work explains why grief can feel like physical pain and why the loss of a loved one can shake our entire sense of self. His research also helps us understand why different people grieve differently — our attachment styles influence how we cope with loss.

Murray Parkes expanded on Bowlby's work and developed his own framework for understanding grief. He identified four phases of mourning:

• Shock and numbness — feeling detached, or emotionally overwhelmed.
• Yearning and searching — intense longing for the person who has died, seeking their presence in some way.
• Disorganisation and despair — feeling lost, confused, struggling to make sense of life without the person who has died.
• Reorganisation and recovery — gradually adjusting to life and finding new ways to engage with the world.

Therese Rando developed a structured model that outlines six key processes in grieving:

• Recognise the loss — acknowledging that the loss has happened.
• React to the separation — allowing emotions like sadness, anger, or guilt to surface.
• Recollect and re-experience — remembering the person and processing both good and painful memories.
• Relinquish attachments to the way things used to be — accepting that life has changed.
• Readjust — beginning to engage with life again in a new way.
• Reinvest — finding meaning, purpose, and new ways to move forward.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross originally developed the Five Stages of Grief to describe how people process terminal illness. Over time, it was applied to grief more broadly. The stages are:

• Denial — shock, disbelief, or emotional numbness.
• Anger — frustration, resentment, or questioning why the loss happened.
• Bargaining — trying to make sense of the loss or prevent further suffering.
• Depression — deep sadness, isolation, or withdrawal.
• Acceptance — learning to live with the loss.

This model is often misunderstood as a linear process, but in reality, people move in and out of these stages in different ways.

William Worden proposed that grieving is an active process with four key tasks:

• Accept the reality of the loss — facing the fact that the loss has happened.
• Process the pain of grief — allowing space for all emotions, without suppressing them.
• Adjust to a world without what was lost — practically and emotionally adapting to the change.
• Find a way to maintain a connection while moving forward — keeping a meaningful bond with what was lost.

The Dual Process Model suggests that grieving isn't a straight path but a back-and-forth movement between two states:

• Loss-oriented — focusing on pain, sadness, and memories.
• Restoration-oriented — focusing on daily life, adapting, and engaging in new experiences.

This model challenges the idea that we should move on from grief. Instead, it suggests that:

• We never fully let go of those we've lost.
• We maintain connections through memories, rituals, and carrying their influence forward.
• Grief is about integration, not detachment.