Grief Loves Company: an Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy Lens on Parts Holding Sorrow

Grief is one of the most profound and universal experiences of being human. Yes, if you're reading this you have either grieved or you will grieve. Yet, particularly in Western cultures, grief is often met with discomfort, avoidance, or an urgency to “move on.” Western culture values productivity, achievement, and emotional control, which leaves little room for the slow, unpredictable, and sacred process of grieving.

From an Internal Family Systems (IFS) perspective, our difficulty being with grief is not a personal failing, it is often a cultural or legacy burden held by protective parts of us. These parts have learned, often through painful experiences personally, through the lineage, or culturally, that sorrow is overwhelming, dangerous, or something that must be contained. A proactive manager part may encourage us to stay busy, remain strong, or focus on practical tasks. A reactive firefighter part may seek distraction, numbing, or escape from painful emotions. These protective parts are not trying to prevent healing; they are attempting to protect vulnerable grieving parts that carry profound sorrow about loss.

IFS invites us not to force ourselves to “get over” grief, but to develop a compassionate relationship with the parts of us that grieve. Healing does not come from pushing grief away or making it disappear. Instead, it comes through the presence of Self turning toward our grieving parts and offering them the accompaniment they crave or have always needed.

Expanding Our Understanding of Grief

When we think of grief, we often think first of the death of someone we love. However, psychotherapist, author, and grief expert, Frances Weller, in his book The Wild Edge of Sorrow, invites us into a much broader understanding of grief. He describes grief as a natural response to the many forms of loss we experience throughout life.

Grief can arise from:

• The inevitable losses of being human: the endings, transitions, separations, and impermanence that accompany life.

• The grief of personal wounds: the pain carried by parts of us that have experienced developmental trauma - neglect, rejection, shame, or unmet needs.

• Collective grief: the sorrow we carry in response to injustice, environmental destruction, suffering, and the wounds of humanity.

• The grief of lost possibilities: unrealised dreams, paths not taken, relationships that did not become what we hoped, and aspects of ourselves that were never fully expressed.

• Ancestral and intergenerational grief: the pain, losses, and burdens inherited across generations that may still seek acknowledgment and support.

  
  

From an IFS perspective, many of these forms of grief are carried internally by parts of us. Some parts may carry memories of childhood loneliness, abandonment, or unmet longing. Other parts may hold grief for the person we wished we could have become, the love we did not receive, or the safety we never experienced. These grieving parts are not problems to be solved. They are aspects of ourselves carrying important experiences and stories that have often been waiting to be witnessed.

In IFS Grief Needs Accompaniment, Not Abandonment

One of the deepest insights of IFS is that healing occurs through relationship. Parts do not transform because we intellectually understand them; they transform because they experience something new.

A grieving part does not necessarily need us to explain why the loss happened, convince it to feel differently, or encourage it to move forward. Often, what it needs most is the compassionate presence of Self. From a place of Self-energy there is no need to rush through a grieving process. Self does not judge sorrow as excessive, inconvenient, or prolonged. Self sits alongside grieving parts with qualities of compassion, curiosity, and courage, communicating:

"I see how much you have carried"", You do not have to hold this alone anymore", "I am here with you."

This accompaniment is central to the healing process. Just as grief needs witnesses in an external community, our internal grief needs the witnessing presence in the internal community.

When grieving parts are met with compassion rather than avoidance, they often begin to soften. They may reveal the losses they have carried, the burdens they have inherited, and the experiences that shaped their sorrow. Through this relationship, grief can move because it is finally allowed to be held with care inside.

The Cultural Avoidance of Grief

Weller describes modern Western society as increasingly disconnected from grief. Many cultures have historically understood grief as something that requires ritual, community, and collective witnessing. I've been fortunate enough to visit other cultures where grief and loss is seen as a natural process intertwined with life, rather separate from it. Additionally, in these cultures, sorrow is not viewed as an individual burden to carry privately, but as a shared human experience.

In contrast, contemporary Western culture often isolates grief. People are expected to return quickly to normal life, resume productivity, and contain their sorrow. This cultural discomfort with grief becomes what Weller describes as a kind of “grief illiteracy”, or a loss of our capacity to sit with suffering, both our own and that of others.

From an IFS perspective, this cultural avoidance can be understood as a collective protective response. Our society develops manager-like qualities: staying busy, pursuing achievement, and avoiding painful emotional experiences. While these strategies may provide short-term protection, they can disconnect us from deeper sources of empathy, connection, and meaning.

When we lose our relationship with grief, we often lose part of our relationship with love itself. Grief exists because someone or something mattered.

Grief and Joy: Two Expressions of Love

Grief and joy are are deeply connected. We grieve because we have loved, and we experience sorrow because something was meaningful. The depth of our grief reflects the depth of our connection. When parts of us are forced to diminish or suppress grief, they often suppress other emotions as well. A protector that prevents sorrow may also limit vulnerability, intimacy, creativity, and joy. In IFS terms, when our protective parts no longer need to work so hard to contain pain, more of our natural Self-energy becomes available.

This does not mean grief disappears. Rather, grief finds its rightful place within us.

A person who has learns to accompany their sorrow may discover greater compassion, deeper gratitude, and a renewed capacity for connection. They become more available to the full spectrum of human experience.

Creating Space for Grief

Weller emphasises the importance of ritual and community in honouring grief. Rituals provide a container for sorrow, and a meaningful way of acknowledging what has been lost and allowing grief to be witnessed.

These rituals might include writing letters to those we have lost, gathering with others to share stories, creating art, spending time in nature, or simply making intentional space to acknowledge what has changed.

From an IFS perspective, rituals can also become opportunities for internal connection. We can create moments where we intentionally turn toward our grieving parts, offering them the presence and compassion they have long needed.

Grief was never designed to be carried alone, internally or externally.

Embracing Grief as a Path Toward Wholeness

Both Frances Weller’s work and the IFS process invite us into a different relationship with grief. Rather than viewing sorrow as something to overcome, suppress, or resolve, we can begin to see grief as a profound expression of our humanity. Grief is not evidence that something is wrong with us. It is evidence that we have cared, loved, hoped, and connected.

Through the compassionate presence of Self, our grieving parts no longer need to carry sorrow in isolation. Through community and ritual, we remember that grief is shared. Through honouring our losses, we reconnect with the depth and richness of life. The invitation is to move with grief rather than on from it.

When we learn to accompany our sorrow, we discover that grief is not merely a place of pain. It is also a doorway into compassion, wisdom, connection, and the fullness of being human.

If you're interested in digging further into grief, I'd recommend you check out the work of Frances Weller, and the excellent podcast hosted by American Journalist, Anderson Cooper, "All There Is".

About the Author

Sean Cuthbert is a Clinical Psychologist, Psychology Board of Australia (PBA) Approved Supervisor, Certified IFS Therapist, and IFS-I Approved Clinical Consultant in private practice in Melbourne, online throughout Australia, and internationally. He provides 1:1 therapy for clients, and supports professionals through individual and group supervision/consultation.