Grief is not a bug, it’s a feature

Sooner or later, we will all experience the death of a loved one, a separation, or another irreversible life change. Grief and the pain associated with loss are universal experiences. In fact, experts believe that even some animals experience and express grief by clearly exhibiting mourning behaviors (King, 2016). Yet grief is often misunderstood, treated as a phase that must be resolved quickly, and seen as an issue to be solved - even medicated - if necessary. But luckily, advocates from different backgrounds are leading a movement to normalize grief, free of expectations and timelines. Two of these pioneers are Brennan Wood, executive director of the Dougy Center, and Mary Frances O’Connor, psychologist, neuroscientist, and professor at the University of Arizona.

It’s about feeling, not fixing

In her TED Talk Grief Is to Feel, Not Fix, Brennan Wood describes losing her mother to breast cancer three days after her twelfth birthday. She explains that the support she received through the Dougy Center helped her recognize that she was not broken and that her grief did not need to be repaired. Wood later became a volunteer facilitator and eventually the organization’s executive director, transforming her personal experience into a commitment to supporting other grieving children and families (Dougy Center, n.d.).

Wood’s main message is that grief is a natural response to losing someone or something important. It must be felt rather than corrected, rushed, or removed. She defines grief as a “physical, behavioral, social, spiritual, emotional, and cognitive” experience that may include feelings like sadness, anger, shock, relief, gratitude, or any combination of emotions. Grief does not disappear when a person reaches a particular milestone, and she warns against the pathologization of grief. Wood criticizes the fact that Prolonged Grief Disorder is now a DSM-5 diagnosis and that individuals can meet the criteria in as little as 6 months after the loss and that pharmaceuticals used to treat addiction are being tested to treat grief.

Wood challenges the idea that successful grieving requires “letting go.” She recommends people refrain from resorting to cliches and platitudes and instead create space for grief expression. Crucially, Wood emphasizes the importance of continuing bonds with one’s deceased loved one. People may carry the memories, influence, and love of the deceased throughout their lives. Her story also demonstrates that bereaved individuals may even create meaning and a purpose with and through their grief without suggesting that suffering must produce a positive outcome. However subjective grief may be, it is always a normal part of life and of love.

Grief is a neurological (re)learning process

In her TED Talk, What Happens in Our Brains When We Grieve?, Mary-Frances O’Connor explains why the mind may understand that a person has died while the brain continues to expect that person to return. O’Connor is a psychologist and professor at the University of Arizona who directs the Grief, Loss, and Social Stress Lab. Her first experience with grief happened when she was in the 8th grade. Her mother was diagnosed with cancer and given only one year to live. Luckily, her mother was a “miracle” and ended up living 14 more years. O’Connor’s research examines the psychological, neurological, and physiological effects of bereavement by studying brain scans of bereaved individuals actively grieving (University of Arizona, 2023).

O’Connor describes grieving as a form of learning. Through attachment, the brain experiences epigenetic changes and develops an internal map that represents an important person as dependable and available. Neurochemicals such as oxytocin, dopamine, and endogenous opioids reinforce the desire to remain close to loved ones. When someone dies, the factual knowledge that the person is gone conflicts with the attachment system’s deeply learned expectation that the person still exists somewhere and can be found. O’Connor calls this the “gone but everlasting theory”, which helps explain yearning, searching behaviors, disbelief, and the feeling that the deceased might walk through the door.

When strong bonds are formed, the brain needs repeated experiences to update its predictions and understand the permanence of the loss. Ultimately, the brain needs to relearn and retrain itself to adapt to loss. However, adaptation does not require eliminating the relationship. According to O’Connor, the brain can create new pathways that allow the mourner to maintain continuing bonds, an internal or symbolic connection, while learning to live with the person’s physical absence (TED, 2023).

Grief is a strength

Both Brennan Wood and Mary-Frances O’Connor’s approaches are extremely valuable and insightful. Despite their differences, the two speakers aim to normalize grief and reject timelines, forced closure, and the expectation that healing means “moving on”. Just like a broken bone that you can visualize and understand from an X-ray needs enough time to set, neuroscience offers a way to normalize the fact that a broken heart needs time to heal as well. However, highlighting neurobiology’s role in grief does not mean one is completely at the mercy of the brain. In fact, defining grief as a learning process can empower mourners to actively practice reshaping their new reality.

In a time when humans are competing with machines and artificial intelligence – even expected to function like them - it is important to advocate for the right to simply be human and normalize the full spectrum of emotional expression. Connection, sorrow, anger, despair, confusion, love, and last but not least, grief: these are all features, not bugs, of the human condition.

REFERENCES

 Dougy Center. (n.d.). Our executive director: Brennan C. Wood. https://www.dougy.org/about/team-dougy/executive-director

King, B. J. (2016). Animal mourning: Précis of How animals grieve (King 2013). Animal Sentience, 1(4), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1010

Klass, D., Silverman, P. R., & Nickman, S. L. (Eds.). (1996). Continuing bonds: New understandings of grief. Taylor & Francis.

O’Connor, M.-F. (2023, May 30). What happens in our brains when we grieve? [Video]. TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/mary_frances_o_connor_what_happens_in_our_brains_when_we_grieve

Stroebe, M., & Schut, H. (1999). The dual process model of coping with bereavement: Rationale and description. Death Studies, 23(3), 197–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/074811899201046

TEDx Talks. (2023, May 28). How do our brains handle grief? | Mary-Frances O’Connor | TEDxUArizona [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBoKZAC9iiI

TEDx Talks. (2025, July 31). Grief is to feel, not fix | Brennan Wood | TEDxPortland [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN4zP5baJrg

University of Arizona News. (2023, May 24). How the brain handles grief: Q&A with Mary-Frances O’Connor. https://news.arizona.edu/news/how-brain-handles-grief-qa-mary-frances-oconnor