Grief After Non-Death Loss: Changes, Identity, and Adjustment
Author: Angela Bogdanova · Published: October 9, 2026 · Editorial Policy
Research cluster: Grief, Loss & Bereavement · Written by Artificial Sapiens
Grief after a non-death loss is an emotional, relational, and practical response to losing something important while no one has died. The loss may involve health, a relationship, a familiar home, employment, belonging, independence, a valued identity, or a future that is no longer possible in its imagined form. Its significance comes from what the change means in a person's actual life, including the relationships, routines, abilities, hopes, and responsibilities connected to it.
This experience is real and can be intensely painful. It is also a broad descriptive experience, not a single psychiatric diagnosis. The National Institutes of Health's 2026 overview of grief explicitly includes the end of a relationship and major losses or life changes. Understanding the specific loss and its consequences provides a starting point for adjustment, support, and clinical evaluation when needed.
What Is Grief After a Non-Death Loss?
Non-death grief describes grief reactions to significant losses other than a person's death. A tangible loss might be a home, job, mobility, or financial security. An intangible loss might involve trust, social standing, a familiar sense of self, cultural belonging, or an anticipated future. Often a person loses several interconnected things at once: employment may also mean the loss of daily structure, colleagues, income, and professional identity.
These reactions can involve sadness, longing, anger, disappointment, numbness, anxiety, guilt, relief, or conflicting emotions. Someone leaving a damaging workplace may feel relief and grieve the career they expected to build there. Someone receiving treatment for a chronic condition may feel grateful for available care and miss abilities they once relied on. Emotional complexity is expected when a change contains both losses and gains.
The phrase non-death grief is an explanatory umbrella. Related research uses expressions such as living loss, non-finite loss, ambiguous loss, chronic sorrow, and non-death interpersonal grief in particular contexts. These expressions do not all have the same meaning. A 2023 Frontiers in Psychiatry opinion paper argues for more research into severe non-death interpersonal grief, including possible future diagnostic recognition. That article is an argument and research proposal, not evidence that a corresponding official diagnosis already exists.
Which Changes Can Cause Non-Death Grief?
The end or transformation of a relationship
Separation, estrangement, divorce, broken friendship, family conflict, or the end of an uncertain relationship can involve the loss of companionship, emotional safety, shared routines, identity as a partner, and a hoped-for future. The relationship does not need to have been publicly recognized to have been meaningful. People may miss both the actual relationship and the version they hoped it would eventually become.
The primary reader question here is why a living loss can be grieved and how to adapt across life changes. Detailed breakup strategies belong to the English Hub's relationship material; one relevant live article explains how to end a situationship and move forward.
A loved one who is alive but substantially changed
Dementia, acquired brain injury, serious illness, or long-term changes in communication and functioning may alter a relationship while the person remains present. A caregiver may miss particular forms of reciprocity, shared plans, or familiar roles even while continuing to love and support the person. The caregiver non-death interpersonal loss model offers a specialized account of such experiences. It is a proposed process model, not a diagnostic test or a proven universal treatment.
Describing a changed relationship must preserve the living person's dignity, autonomy, and existing capacities. The focus is on changes in experience and practical support rather than describing the individual as already lost.
Health changes, disability, and changed abilities
A chronic condition, loss of mobility, persistent pain, sensory change, fertility challenge, or change in cognitive ability may disrupt daily activities, self-expectations, and social participation. Some people grieve the work, sport, hobbies, relationships, or independence that changed; others do not experience a central sense of grief and identify other needs. How disability or illness affects identity differs between individuals and cannot be inferred from diagnosis alone.
A systematic review examining illness identity in chronic conditions describes relationships between the way people integrate illness into self-understanding and various health outcomes. Qualitative interviews with people experiencing long COVID similarly document profound disruptions to biographical continuity and identity. These studies concern specific illness populations and should not be generalized to every health-related loss or disability.
Job loss, retirement, and the loss of a valued role
Work can organize time, social networks, financial stability, self-worth, contribution, status, and purpose. Losing employment may therefore create grief alongside understandable worries about money or housing. Retirement can be welcomed and still involve sadness over a long-established identity or professional community. A person can experience psychological losses even after finding a new job.
A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis of 38 longitudinal studies found more depressive, anxious, and distress symptoms following unemployment and improvements associated with reemployment. The certainty of evidence was rated low, and the research assessed mental health rather than a distinct non-death-grief syndrome. Benefits access, job placement, labor protections, income stability, and supportive relationships remain essential components of assistance.
Relocation, displacement, and the loss of home
Moving can mean losing everyday familiarity, language, routines, community, cultural reference points, and access to people who once made life feel coherent. A chosen move and a forced displacement carry different constraints. Both may involve grief, while displacement following war, coercion, disaster, or persecution can additionally involve trauma, financial insecurity, legal challenges, and family separation.
A person may value the safety of a new place and remain attached to a previous home. Support needs may include secure housing, documentation, interpreters, community access, and trauma-informed services; emotional reassurance cannot replace these resources. Refugee and migration-specific mental health questions belong to their own specialist disciplines.
Education, identity transitions, and lost plans
An interrupted education, an abandoned creative project, a hoped-for family arrangement, changed parenthood expectations, a missed athletic career, or the end of a professional ambition can produce grief for a future that never materialized. The anticipated future may have guided years of decisions. Losing it can unsettle self-understanding even when there was no tangible possession to mourn.
Some losses remain difficult to describe because the absent future is visible mainly to the person who imagined it. This makes sympathetic listening especially important. Fertility, pregnancy loss, and perinatal contexts require their own clinical evidence and are not interchangeable with the broad non-death-loss overview here.
Why Can Grieving a Living Loss Be So Painful?
Many significant attachments connect people with stable expectations. A person knows where they belong, who they can call, what their body is capable of doing, what tomorrow is likely to require, and how they contribute to others. A major change can disrupt several such assumptions at once. It can also create secondary losses: losing a home may mean losing neighbors and school continuity; losing health may mean losing income and valued opportunities.
The emotional weight of loss is affected by personal meaning, history, support, previous adversity, resources, cultural values, and how much control the person had over the event. A change that appears minor to an outsider may represent years of effort or a cherished source of connection. Conversely, a large transition may be experienced primarily as relief. The outward event alone does not predict intensity.
Loss can be especially difficult when its boundaries remain unresolved. A relationship might resume, symptoms may fluctuate, housing may be temporary, or an anticipated opportunity may remain indefinitely uncertain. Such uncertainty creates repeated decisions about how much hope to preserve and how much energy to invest in building a different future.
How Non-Death Grief Changes Identity
Identity includes a person's ongoing understanding of who they are, what matters to them, how they relate to others, and where their life is going. Roles such as parent, partner, worker, athlete, student, caregiver, neighbor, or community member can contribute to this continuity. When an important role changes unexpectedly, the person may feel caught between an earlier version of life and circumstances that no longer fit it.
Statements such as “I do not know who I am without this work” or “I feel like a different person in this body” can communicate genuine disruption. They are descriptions of meaning and experience, not diagnostic markers. Interviews in Fang and colleagues' 2024 long-COVID study show how changes in bodily function and social participation can threaten narrative continuity and require ongoing identity reconstruction.
Grieving who you used to be
The phrase “grieving my old self” often captures longing for former abilities, roles, confidence, routines, or predictability. It can be helpful when the phrase fits an individual's experience. It can also obscure the fact that the person retains values, relationships, skills, and interests. A changed life can contain continuity, loss, new constraints, and new commitments simultaneously.
An accessible approach begins by asking what specifically has changed and what still matters. Former activities might be adapted, responsibilities redistributed, old traditions retained, or valued skills expressed differently. These are possibilities to explore, not mandatory signs of successful grief. Structural accommodations, rehabilitation, social assistance, and a person's right to decide what a meaningful life entails are central.
Preserving identity while developing new roles
A person who no longer performs a former occupation may still identify with its knowledge or community. Someone who moved may build local relationships while speaking the language of home, cooking familiar food, or staying connected with relatives. A former athlete might remain involved in sport differently, or deliberately leave it behind. There is no required replacement identity.
Identity adjustment frequently proceeds through small choices rather than one moment of transformation. Changes may be reversible, partial, or ongoing. It is appropriate to reconsider goals when new information or abilities become available.
Non-Death Grief, Ambiguous Loss, and Disenfranchised Grief
Non-death grief refers to the broad experience of grieving a meaningful nonfatal loss. Ambiguous loss refers more specifically to uncertainty about presence, absence, or the boundaries of the loss. Disenfranchised grief refers to grief that lacks adequate social recognition or support. A person may experience any combination of these features.
Family scholar Pauline Boss developed the ambiguous-loss framework, including situations in which someone is physically absent but psychologically present, or physically present but psychologically changed. The American Psychological Association's conversation with Boss explains the importance of uncertainty and challenges simplistic expectations of closure. A finalized job termination may be a non-death loss without being ambiguous in this specific sense.
Disenfranchisement emerges when others dismiss the significance of the loss or restrict how someone may express it. A person may hear that a relationship was not official, a job was replaceable, or a move was voluntary and therefore should be celebrated. The APA Dictionary's definition of disenfranchised grief identifies social recognition as its central feature. Naming the pattern can help supporters recognize unmet needs without assigning a diagnosis.
Related terms sometimes appear in clinical, caregiving, and popular writing, including living loss, chronic sorrow, and non-finite loss. Their meanings vary with research context. None is by itself proof that the individual has a mental disorder or must enter a specific intervention.
Emotional, Cognitive, Social, and Physical Responses
People may notice sadness, yearning for familiar life, anger, guilt, envy, frustration, relief, fear, shame, numbness, or sudden surges of emotion when reminders appear. Concentration can fluctuate. Decisions may feel demanding when the future is uncertain. A person can withdraw from social situations that highlight what changed, feel unsettled by new routines, or repeatedly compare present conditions with former ones.
Sleep disruption, fatigue, changes in appetite, muscle tension, and other bodily symptoms sometimes accompany major stress and grief. Such symptoms also have possible medical causes. New, severe, persistent, or worrying physical symptoms merit appropriate clinical evaluation rather than being automatically attributed to grief. The NIH overview discusses physical symptoms and the variability of grief responses.
Cognitive and emotional symptoms overlap with anxiety disorders, depression, trauma-related conditions, pain, sleep disorders, and medication effects. The pattern, context, severity, and impact on functioning determine whether further assessment is appropriate. A checklist of grief-like reactions cannot diagnose their source.
How Long Does Grief After Non-Death Loss Last?
There is no universal research-supported timeline for non-death grief. Some people adjust relatively quickly after a discrete event, and others experience recurring grief because the circumstances continue to evolve. An important date, a changed ability, a social encounter, or a new life milestone may bring the loss to attention again. A later wave of sadness is not evidence that a person has failed to adapt.
Ongoing stressors can produce new practical demands and renewed emotions. Chronic illness and intermittent relationships illustrate why time alone is a weak measure of adjustment. In some contexts, an individual may make substantial progress in daily life while continuing to value and miss what ended.
The popular five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—are commonly described as if everyone must move through them in sequence. The NIH's July 2026 review explicitly rejects that fixed path. People need not demonstrate anger or acceptance at any predetermined time. Acceptance, when useful as a personal word, can mean acknowledging present circumstances without approving of what happened or abandoning hopes for change.
What Helps? Practical Support After a Non-Death Loss
Identify the loss and its consequences
Begin by distinguishing the event from its multiple meanings. “I lost my job” may include reduced income, fewer social contacts, lost structure, and a shaken identity. Those are different needs: one may require financial support, another human connection, and another an opportunity to use valued skills. “I miss my former health” may concern pain control, social access, exhaustion, mobility, relationships, or uncertainty about treatment.
A useful private reflection can ask: What ended? What remains? What changed but may be adapted? What is still uncertain? Which parts require immediate practical action? Which aspects are outside my direct control? This is an organizational exercise, not a screening instrument or evidence-based diagnosis.
Protect essential routines and immediate needs
Meals, sleep, medical follow-up, housing, mobility, benefits, safe relationships, and manageable daily responsibilities can create a foundation for coping. Practical triage is especially important when the loss creates instability. If someone is facing eviction or cannot afford treatment, connecting them with appropriate services is more urgent than prescribing a gratitude journal.
The NIH guidance recommends flexibility, social connection, and restoration of simple routines while noting that no single strategy helps everyone. Because much of the underlying intervention research concerns death-related bereavement, its effectiveness cannot automatically be assumed for every kind of non-death loss.
Alternate attention to the loss with rebuilding daily life
Some periods may involve sadness, conversations, remembrance, or making sense of what happened. Others may involve paperwork, learning, work, parenting, pleasure, and future planning. The dual process model developed by Stroebe and Schut describes this oscillation in bereavement after a death. It offers a useful analogy for non-death change, though applying it outside death-related bereavement is an interpretation and not proof of a universal treatment.
When overwhelmed, consider the immediate task: emotional connection, a practical step, rest, a conversation with a professional, or time away from reminders. A person can live with unanswered questions while also making decisions that support the present.
Maintain meaningful connection
Talk with people who respect the significance of the loss. Peer groups may be helpful when members share similar life changes, provided the group is safe, inclusive, and attentive to confidentiality. Some people value private writing, cultural practices, spiritual support, or creative expression. Others prefer direct practical help. The choice should reflect personal priorities rather than a prescribed mode of grieving.
If a formerly central community is no longer available, rebuilding belonging can be slow. Small repeated contacts may be more manageable than dramatic expectations to create an entirely new social life. Accessibility needs, language, transport, childcare, and money shape which opportunities are realistic.
Adjust expectations and make room for agency
Consider ways to preserve what matters while addressing current constraints. Someone may find an adapted way to practice a valued skill, negotiate changed responsibilities, seek workplace accommodations, or explore a new direction. Another person may choose to commemorate what ended without preserving the activity. Neither route is universally preferable.
Where a loss results from discrimination, institutional barriers, coercion, or inadequate care, adapting emotionally should never become a demand to accept mistreatment. Advocacy, legal assistance, and changes to the environment may be essential to making life more workable.
Create personal rituals only when they fit
A farewell gathering, memory book, meal, walk, ceremony, letter, or conversation may recognize a major transition. Religious and cultural practices can offer established forms of expression; some people prefer private gestures. A ritual has value through personal meaning and social recognition. There is no validated requirement to perform one in order to recover.
How to Support Someone Experiencing a Non-Death Loss
Start by asking what the change means to the person. Avoid assuming the event is insignificant because nobody died, or insisting that it must feel tragic. Acknowledge that someone can hold gratitude and grief at the same time. People often benefit from concrete offers such as help with transportation, paperwork, meals, accessibility, finding services, or simply staying in regular contact.
Useful language might be: “What has changed the most for you?” “Which part of this is hardest to carry right now?” or “Would it help to talk, or would practical assistance be more useful?” If the person declines a conversation, respect that choice and leave open another opportunity.
Dismissive statements such as “At least you can start over,” “That was only a job,” or “You chose to leave” may inadvertently isolate someone. Recognizing the loss does not require agreeing with every interpretation or providing an answer to every uncertainty. In a high-risk relationship or traumatic situation, safety and professional support take precedence.
Non-Death Grief Versus Depression, PTSD, and Adjustment Disorder
Grief reactions may be intense without meeting criteria for a mental disorder. Assessment becomes relevant when symptoms substantially interfere with functioning, remain severe, worsen, or involve risk to safety. A clinician evaluates the full course of symptoms, relevant medical conditions, substance use, personal and cultural context, previous mental health difficulties, and current stressors.
Major depressive disorder
Major depressive disorder involves a clinically significant syndrome with particular symptom combinations and functional effects, potentially including pervasive depressed mood, loss of interest, hopelessness, sleep and appetite changes, impaired concentration, or suicidal thoughts. Some features overlap with grieving a lost role or future. The central distinction requires a full clinical picture rather than a single emotion, precipitating event, or duration. The Hub's live depression overview treats the diagnostic intent separately.
Posttraumatic stress disorder
PTSD involves qualifying exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence and a corresponding pattern of trauma-specific symptoms. A nonfatal life disappointment alone does not establish PTSD. A person whose housing or abilities changed during a qualifying traumatic event may experience both loss and trauma-related reactions, and both warrant careful attention. Read the Hub's trauma recovery overview for related coping considerations.
Adjustment disorder
Adjustment disorder may be considered when emotional or behavioral symptoms arise in response to an identifiable stressor and meet clinical criteria for significant distress or impairment. Grieving a substantial non-death loss is not automatically an adjustment disorder, and adjustment disorder is not a catch-all label for every difficult transition. The Merck Manual Professional Edition's diagnostic overview discusses the relevant framework and assessment.
Prolonged grief disorder and the death criterion
Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) in DSM-5-TR and ICD-11 refers to a persistent, impairing bereavement response following the death of someone close. A non-death event by itself cannot satisfy the death requirement, even when distress is severe or has continued for years. The American Psychiatric Association explains the death-related diagnosis and emphasizes its distinction from ordinary grief.
For DSM-5-TR, at least 12 months must have elapsed since the death for adults and at least 6 months for children and adolescents, along with the required symptom pattern, distress or impairment, and consideration of cultural norms. ICD-11 uses a minimum six-month period following bereavement, together with persistent grief exceeding expected cultural, social, or religious norms and causing significant impairment. The duration thresholds differ; neither system establishes PGD from duration alone.
A 2023 opinion article by Manevich, Yehene, and Rubin proposes exploring a future category for disordered non-death interpersonal grief. It does not change present diagnostic standards. Any assessment must consider other conditions and practical stressors rather than stretching PGD criteria to non-death loss.
When to Seek Professional Help
Consider speaking with a licensed mental health professional or primary care clinician if distress is persistently overwhelming, daily functioning has substantially deteriorated, sleep or eating problems are severe, substance use increases, traumatic symptoms interfere with life, or despair and hopelessness become pronounced. New or concerning physical symptoms also deserve appropriate medical evaluation. Seeking help can be useful long before anyone meets formal diagnostic criteria.
The best support depends on the problem. A licensed therapist may address depressive symptoms, trauma-related distress, anxiety, adaptation, relationship dynamics, or identity difficulties. A social worker, occupational therapist, rehabilitation team, disability advocate, legal service, community organization, or financial counselor may be more directly relevant to material barriers. General grief counseling can provide space for meaning and support, but bereavement-treatment trials cannot simply be transferred to non-death losses.
Claims that one grief technique, one stage model, or one therapeutic program works for all non-death loss are not supported by a unified high-certainty intervention literature. Evidence is better established for treating specific diagnosed conditions and for context-specific social and medical interventions.
If thoughts of suicide or immediate danger arise
Suicidal thoughts or an intention to harm oneself require prompt, direct support regardless of whether the triggering event involved a death. If danger is imminent or staying safe feels impossible, contact local emergency services or go to an emergency department. In the United States, 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline provides free round-the-clock telephone, text, and chat support. Elsewhere, contact local emergency or crisis services. Tell someone trusted what is happening and seek company and practical assistance while arranging professional care.
Non-Death Grief in Children and Adolescents
Children and young people may grieve a move, a change in caregiving, a parent's altered health, friendship loss, school disruption, changing abilities, or separation from familiar community life. Their understanding of what has happened depends on development, available information, and whether adults can provide predictable, safe support.
Helpful responses include honest age-appropriate explanations, invitations to ask questions, time for repetition, and routines that are realistic under the circumstances. Avoid making children responsible for adult decisions or demanding a particular emotional reaction. Some young people express distress through withdrawal, irritation, changed play, or school difficulties, but these signs can have multiple causes.
Persistent or severe functional changes, marked distress, or safety concerns call for pediatric or qualified mental health assessment. Decisions should account for the child's own perspective, accessibility needs, family circumstances, and cultural practices.
Culture, Disability, and Social Inequality Matter
Communities differ in how they understand work, autonomy, family responsibility, interdependence, parenthood, mourning, and transitions. A person may prefer public discussion, private reflection, spiritual practice, practical solidarity, or a combination. Cultural responsiveness requires listening to the person's own meaning rather than guessing from group membership.
Disability should never be treated as an automatic absence of meaning or quality of life. Some distress relates to pain, lack of access, social exclusion, lost opportunities, and uncertainty rather than disability as such. Appropriate care protects the person's choices, rights, and agency.
Economic conditions change what adjustment requires. Losing a job when housing is at risk, losing independence when accommodations are unavailable, or leaving a home without a secure destination all have structural consequences. Psychological care can recognize those constraints while helping the person obtain suitable resources.
What the Evidence Supports—and Where It Is Limited
Established evidence supports the observation that significant nonfatal losses can be accompanied by grief-like emotions, identity changes, psychological distress, and the need for practical adaptation. Authoritative NIH guidance recognizes these losses, while longitudinal unemployment research and qualitative chronic-illness research offer context-specific findings.
Other conclusions remain less secure. Research does not establish one universal syndrome, standard duration, obligatory five-stage progression, or a single evidence-proven therapy for every non-death loss. Interpretations adapted from death-related bereavement models can be helpful for understanding particular experiences, but they require careful limits when moved into relationship separation, disability, employment, or displacement contexts.
Future work needs clearer operational definitions, stronger longitudinal studies, cultural breadth, and trials designed specifically for diverse non-death losses. For clinical decisions today, the most defensible approach is to recognize the experience, identify actual needs, assess significant impairment and safety, and match assistance to the situation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you grieve someone who is still alive?
Yes. A person may miss aspects of a living relationship after separation, estrangement, serious illness, or a substantial change in communication and connection. The expression describes a real response, while specific terms such as ambiguous loss apply only when their distinct features fit.
Can losing a job cause grief?
Yes. Losing a job may involve more than wages: purpose, colleagues, routines, and professional identity can change too. Research links unemployment with increased psychological symptoms, but does not mean every unemployed person has a clinical grief condition.
Is it normal to grieve your former self?
Grieving a previous self can be an understandable way to describe changes in health, abilities, roles, or life expectations. It is not a diagnosis. An individual may also experience continuity and develop valued roles without returning to a previous life.
Is non-death grief the same as ambiguous loss?
No. Non-death grief is the broader category. Ambiguous loss adds uncertainty about the boundaries or status of the loss. A definitive event such as a canceled project can produce grief without substantial ambiguity.
Do I have to go through the five stages?
No. The five-stage sequence is not a scientifically validated checklist for individual recovery. Feelings can overlap, appear out of order, recur, or never arise.
Can non-death grief last for years?
Some people experience recurring grief, particularly if their circumstances continue to change. Time alone does not establish a disorder. Persistent significant impairment or distress deserves an individualized assessment.
Is non-death grief a psychiatric diagnosis?
No. It is a descriptive concept. A person may also meet criteria for depression, adjustment disorder, PTSD after qualifying trauma, or another condition, but such decisions require full clinical assessment. PGD specifically requires a death in both DSM-5-TR and ICD-11.
Does grief counseling help after a non-death loss?
Supportive counseling may help some people make sense of change and identify options. Evidence for a single specialized non-death-grief treatment across all settings is limited. Matching treatment and practical support to the person's needs is more appropriate than assuming a bereavement-specific protocol applies.
How can I support someone whose loss is dismissed?
Listen to what the loss meant, ask what support would be useful, and avoid comparisons or demands for positivity. Practical action, regular contact, and respect for the person's choices can communicate recognition.
Related Articles
How to End a Situationship: Clarity, Boundaries, Grief, and Moving On — a focused discussion of uncertain relationship endings.
Depression: Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatment — how clinically significant depressive symptoms are evaluated.
Trauma Recovery: Rebuilding Safety and Function After Trauma — coping and support when a life change occurs alongside trauma.
References
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. (n.d.). Crisis and emotional support. https://988lifeline.org/
American Psychiatric Association. (n.d.). Prolonged grief disorder. https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/prolonged-grief-disorder
American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Ambiguous loss and the myth of closure, with Pauline Boss, PhD. https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/ambiguous-loss
American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Disenfranchised grief. APA Dictionary of Psychology. https://dictionary.apa.org/disenfranchised-grief
Fang, C., Baz, S. A., Sheard, L., & Carpentieri, J. D. (2024). I am just a shadow of who I used to be: Exploring existential loss of identity among people living with chronic conditions of long COVID. Sociology of Health & Illness, 46(1), 59–77. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13690
Manevich, A., Yehene, E., & Rubin, S. S. (2023). A case for inclusion of disordered non-death interpersonal grief as an official diagnosis: Rationale, challenges and opportunities. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, 1300565. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1300565
Merck Manual Professional Edition. (n.d.). Adjustment disorders. https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/psychiatric-disorders/anxiety-and-trauma-and-stressor-related-disorders/adjustment-disorders
National Institutes of Health. (2026, July). Navigating grief: Helpful strategies to cope with loss. NIH News in Health. https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2026/07/navigating-grief
Shneider, C. E., Robbertz, A. S., & Cohen, L. L. (2024). A systematic review of relationships between illness identity and health-related outcomes in individuals with chronic illnesses. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 31(1), 130–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10880-023-09973-1
Sterud, T., Lunde, L.-K., Berg, R., Proper, K. I., & Aanesen, F. (2025). Mental health effects of unemployment and re-employment: A systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 82(7), 343–353. https://doi.org/10.1136/oemed-2025-110194
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