Sometimes, we’re surprised by how much another person’s loss affects us. Maybe a friend is grieving the death of a parent, or you work with patients and families facing serious illness. And you find yourself feeling more than sympathy — their loss seems to be taking a toll on you too.
There’s a name for this experience.
“Vicarious grief is the grief we experience in response to someone else’s loss,” says Wilson Hood, MDiv, a grief counselor at HopeHealth. “It’s a deep emotional resonance with the loss experience.”
In his current role with HopeHealth’s grief support team, and previously as a hospice chaplain, Wilson has worked with many people experiencing vicarious grief. Here, he shares what’s behind this experience, and how to take care of yourself through it.
> Are you coping with grief and loss? HopeHealth offers free, virtual grief support groups.
What causes vicarious grief?
When we hear the word grief, most of us think of direct grief: grief following a loss that has happened in our own life. With vicarious grief, the loss belongs to someone else, but it triggers a grief response of your own. You’re not only feeling for the person who is grieving; their loss is affecting you emotionally, physically or both.
Why does this happen?
Sometimes, vicarious grief comes simply from being close to another person’s pain. Wilson gives the example of a healthcare worker caring for a woman whose father has just died.
“You might simply be connecting with her with the depth of her pain, her grief, her experience at a human-to-human level,” he says.
Other times, what someone else is going through touches something in our own history. Maybe a friend’s loss echoes something you’ve experienced personally — for example, the loss of a parent. Supporting your friend through their loss may bring memories of your own back to the surface.
The same dynamics can happen in our relationships, in our work, and even in the broader community, when a tragedy feels close to home. Simply being close to another person’s pain can bring on vicarious grief — a different experience, but no less real.
How vicarious grief can show up
Just like direct grief, vicarious grief can show up in unexpected ways, which can make it hard to recognize. It doesn’t always look or feel like sadness.
You might:
- Feel low or emotionally heavy
- Feel irritable or quicker to anger
- Feel physically exhausted or drained
- Notice changes in your sleep or appetite
- Have trouble concentrating
“Any of these symptoms can be a check-in light: You may be experiencing vicarious grief,” Wilson says. “We don’t just grieve with our minds and our hearts. We grieve with our bodies.”
Why it helps to name it
A note: If you hesitate to call what you’re feeling grief, even vicarious grief, keep in mind that naming it doesn’t suggest your experience is on the same level as the loss of someone who is directly bereaved. It simply helps you understand what may be happening in your own mind and body.
“If we don’t understand vicarious grief, we risk minimizing what’s happening just as routine stress,” Wilson says. “You might be having all of these symptoms and experiences of vicarious grief, but thinking, ‘I must be the only one.’ It’s isolating.”
Once we recognize an experience as grief, though, we have more options for how to care for ourselves through it.
> Read: Finding Solace: Top Books and Online Resources for Navigating Grief
Make room for grief
One way to make that space is through what Wilson calls our “tools of mourning,” the rituals and practices that help us express grief instead of keeping the whole experience inside.
At HopeHealth, one such ritual starts with a bowl of sea glass.
When a care team has been through a difficult stretch of losses, members of HopeHealth’s grief support team gather with the staff who cared for them. Together, they read the patients’ names aloud. Team members can place a piece of sea glass into the bowl and, if they’d like, share a memory.
“What was that flavor of ice cream that they kept pressing the buzzer and asking the nurse for? What show did they watch on repeat?” Wilson says. “We leave the clinical material to the side, and talk about each person as a human being.”
Outside of healthcare, making room for grief may look completely different. It could mean talking with someone who understands, writing about what has stayed with you, or taking part in a memorial or quiet ritual or your own. What matters is finding an outlet rather than carrying the weight silently.
And often, making room for grief can shape us in ways we don’t expect.
“Grief, whether direct or vicarious, is inescapable. It is simply a part of the human condition,” says Wilson. “When we open ourselves up to the experience, and find healthy tools to express it, we can open deeper avenues of compassion and empathy.”