Grief associated with reproductive loss can be extremely painful and distressing, affecting an individual’s body, mind, and spiritual well-being. Society often minimizes or denies the grief associated with this loss and its devastating effects.

Derived from our clinical observations of the actual experiences of bereaved individuals who suffered a reproductive loss, Kathleen Gray and Anne Lassance developed a clinical based model, the Healing Process Model ©, which offers a holistic approach for constructive, healthy grieving, and healing of the body, mind and spirit. It differs from some existing models of grief developed in studies of widows and widowers because the grief experience after reproductive loss is a unique challenge for individuals who experience reproductive loss and their caregivers. In the book titled, Grieving Reproductive Loss:The Healing Process, the authors examine such losses and explain how through the Healing Process Model © , a healing response can be elicited in the treatment of reproductive loss.

The Healing Process Model © is adapted to recognize the unique grieving and healing process of each individual, respecting where the individual is in his or her healing process, through compassion and nonjudgmental listening. It does not follow a step by step model, but rather progresses from cues from the individual who is bereaved.

The objective is to heal, comfort, soothe, grow sound again, encourage, restore, and renew the body, mind, and spirit of those who grieve and mourn, by following the operations or actions of the Outline of the Healing Process Model © Some of the operations or actions of the process are those of the bereaved, while some are the actions of the caregiver or counselor.

• I feel I’m going crazy.
• I can’t eat.
• I can’t sleep.

• I can’t concentrate.
• I feel I lost a part of me.
• I started smoking and drinking.

• I’m on an emotional roller-coaster.
• I feel so depressed.
• I feel so angry.