🌉 Continuing Bonds – Overview
Continuing Bonds Theory suggests that when someone we love dies, the relationship doesn’t end – it changes. This model encourages maintaining a connection with the person who has died as a natural and healthy part of grief.
These connections might take the form of:
- Memories that bring comfort;
- Rituals that help you feel closer to them;
- Objects, places, or habits that carry meaning;
- Noticing the ways their influence continues in your life.
When placed alongside the Five Stages of Grief, Continuing Bonds explains how grief may involve holding onto love, while slowly adapting to life after loss.
🙌 How It Helps
Continuing Bonds can ease the pressure many people feel to “move on.” Instead of feeling torn between remembering and healing, this model shows that:
- Remembering can be part of healing.
- Connection does not prevent growth.
- Your loved one can continue shaping your life in meaningful ways.
This perspective can help reduce guilt, soften loneliness, and deepen your sense of staying connected to your loved one in a meaningful way.
🤍 May Be Helpful If…
- You find peace or grounding in rituals, memory, or symbolism.
- You feel guilty for wanting to keep your connection alive.
- You’re struggling with the idea of “letting go”.
- You want to integrate memories into daily life in a gentle, intentional way.
- You’re looking for ways to honour the person you’ve lost.
📌 Tips for Using This Model
Here are gentle, accessible ways people often continue connections with loved ones:
Rituals
- Light a candle on meaningful days;
- Visit a special place;
- Cook a favourite meal;
- Keep a small object that brings comfort.
Personal Expression
- Talk to them in your thoughts;
- Write letters or journal entries addressed to them;
- Continue a tradition you shared.
Sharing & Storytelling
- Tell stories about them with trusted friends or family;
- Create or keep a photo album, memory box, or playlist;
- Share memories during family gatherings or anniversaries.
Living Their Influence
- Live out a value they taught you;
- Support a cause they cared about;
- Use a phrase, lesson, or mindset they left you with.
There is no right or wrong way – only what feels meaningful and supportive for you.
📖 Further Reading
Klass, D., Silverman, P., & Nickman, S. (1996). Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief.
Continuing Bonds Theory in Grief Counselling
Remember: these models are simply ways of understanding grief. You are the expert in your own experience, and you never need to fit yourself into any single model.
Take what’s helpful and leave the rest.
Grief Models: Online Course
Psychological models offer structure for understanding the many emotions and changes that grief brings. They help professionals – and anyone supporting someone who is grieving make sense of the experience and respond with empathy, clarity, and confidence.
👥 See real case studies that bring theory to life
🕯️ Understand continuing bonds, meaning-making, tasks of mourning, and more
🛠️ Practical tools for real-world settings
📘 Worksheets to use in sessions