UNDERSTANDING OVERLOOKED GRIEF
A Loss Doesn’t Need a Funeral to Deserve Recognition.
Disenfranchised grief is grief that is not fully recognized, supported, or validated by society, family, culture, or the people around us.
Learning to name overlooked grief is a foundation for compassionate, ethical support.
THE CONCEPT
What Is Disenfranchised Grief?
Disenfranchised grief can happen after a death, but it also appears in many forms of living loss. It may follow estrangement, divorce, friendship loss, infertility, identity changes, chronic illness, caregiving, career loss, relocation, LGBTQ+ rejection, pet loss, or the loss of dreams and expected futures.
Living loss describes what may be grieved. Disenfranchisement describes how grief may be denied recognition or support. They can overlap, but they are not identical.
FOR PRACTITIONERS
What Coaches Need to Understand About Disenfranchised Grief
A trained grief coach does not diagnose, provide therapy, or try to “fix” grief. Instead, coaching can help clients explore what they have lost, understand the impact of that loss, identify needs and boundaries, reconnect with their values, and begin deciding what moving forward looks like for them.
Recognizing these experiences is an important part of learning to support grief as a coach or helping professional.
