Identify and address secondary stressors
Name the practical, identity, and relational challenges the loss has created — and work on them as restoration.
Why it works
The DPM identifies secondary stressors — the cascade of practical and social problems generated by the loss itself — as a distinct driver of grief-related distress that is not addressed by loss-oriented emotional processing alone. Financial strain, role changes, social network disruption each require their own problem-solving and adjustment, which is restoration-orientation work.
How to do it
- List the concrete practical changes the loss has created: financial, logistical, social, relational.
- For each, identify a small actionable step that can be taken this week.
- Frame this problem-solving explicitly as restoration work — grief-related, not unrelated to loss.
- Separate the emotional response to each stressor (loss-oriented) from the practical response (restoration-oriented).
Evidence
Secondary stressors in bereavement are a well-documented concept in the grief literature; their contribution to bereavement distress is established observationally, and problem-solving therapy for depression (which accompanies grief) has RCT support. Cuijpers et al. (2018), an updated meta-analysis, finds problem-solving therapy an effective treatment for adult depression, grounding the restoration-oriented step in solving concrete stressors. (observational)
The secondary stressor concept is well described; the specific contribution of each type of stressor to grief outcomes varies by individual and cultural context.
Sources
- Stroebe, M., & Schut, H. (2016). Overload: A missing link in the dual process model? OMEGA — Journal of Death and Dying, 74(1), 96–109.
- Cuijpers, P., de Wit, L., Kleiboer, A., Karyotaki, E., & Ebert, D. D. (2018). Problem-solving therapy for adult depression: An updated meta-analysis. European Psychiatry, 48(1), 27–37.
Common mistake
Treating all grief-related distress as requiring emotional processing, when some of it is driven by solvable practical problems that have not yet been addressed.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for The Dual Process Model of Grief, Made Practical
- Deliberately engage loss-oriented work
Set aside dedicated time to directly face the grief — the emotions, the absence, the meaning of the loss.
- Deliberately take time off from grief
Give yourself genuine permission to engage with ordinary life — this is restoration orientation, not avoidance.
- Regulate the oscillation consciously
If you are spending too long in one orientation, deliberately shift to the other.
- Identify your natural grieving style and adjust for it
Know whether you tend toward more loss or more restoration orientation — and compensate accordingly.
- Identify how cultural norms shape your grief
Examine whether cultural scripts about how long and how much to grieve are shaping your experience.