Common Grief Avoidance Response Styles

A. The “Postponer” – “The “Postponer” is the person who believes that if you delay the expression of your grief over time it will hopefully go away.”

B. The “Displacer” – “The “Displacer” is the person who takes the expression of grief away from the loss itself and displaces the feelings in other directions.”

C. The “Replacer” – “The “Replacer” is the person who takes the emotions that were invested in the relationship that ended in death and reinvests the emotions prematurely in another relationship.”

D. The Minimizer – “The “Minimizer” is the person who is aware of feelings of grief, but when felt, works to minimize the feelings by diluting them through a variety of rationalizations.”

Do you recognize yourself, or someone you know, in one of these grief avoidance response styles?

These response styles were are a product of Dr. Alan D. Wolfelt, and can be found in “Death and Grief: A Guide for Clergy“. Dr. Baker has used them with permission in, “Equipping the Church with Grief Ministry Skills.”