A review of Roger M. Solomon’s EMDR Therapy Treatment for Grief and Mourning (Oxford University Press, 2024), Part 2.
Roger Solomon, a clinical psychologist and senior faculty member at the EMDR Institute, reviews four models of grief in his book, EMDR Therapy Treatment for Grief and Mourning: Transforming the Connection to the Deceased Loved One. These models—Attachment Theory, the Continuing Bonds Model, the Dual Process Model, and the “R” Processes of Mourning—offer distinct but complementary accounts of how grief is resolved. Understanding their different emphases provides a framework for selecting and sequencing EMDR interventions with bereaved clients.
Preparing Mourners for EMDR Processing
For many mourners, fully recognizing the loss is overwhelming and intensely painful during the early phase of therapy. Accordingly, the preparation phase of EMDR often emphasizes emotional support, psychoeducation about the grief process, and the development of coping and containment skills. This preparatory work helps clients build the stability needed for subsequent memory processing.
Attachment Theory and Grief
Research indicates that attachment style shapes how mourners respond to the loss of a loved one. Because grief often centers on a disrupted sense of connection, attachment style strongly influences how individuals cope with that loss. Therefore, treatment of complicated grief should address not only the trauma of the current loss but also past maladaptively stored memories that contributed to the development of the individual’s attachment style and underlie current difficulties.
The Continuing Bonds Model
Building on attachment-based understandings of grief, the Continuing Bonds Model (CBM) focuses specifically on how the mourner’s relationship with the deceased changes rather than ends. Although the loss of physical connection causes distress, mourners gradually acknowledge the death and its permanence while developing a psychological bond. Positive memories of the deceased can then form an adaptive inner representation that sustains a meaningful sense of connection. Bowlby’s concept of the Internal Working Model (IWM) helps explain the psychological mechanism underlying a continuing bond. Children initially depend on a caregiver’s physical proximity to experience the bond, but over time they develop an internal working model that allows the connection to persist during separation. In grief, a comparable transformation occurs as the mourner develops a new internal model through which the relationship with the deceased is experienced in heartfelt memories rather than physical presence.
Once clients are ready for memory processing, EMDR therapy can help transform the continuing bond by processing the emotional pain associated with recognizing that the loved one is permanently gone. As this pain becomes linked with adaptive information, clients may gain fuller access to positive, heartfelt memories that support an inner representation of the deceased. Conflictual or negative memories can also shape the continuing bond; identifying and reprocessing them may therefore be necessary to promote healthy mourning.
The Dual Process Model
According to the Dual Process Model (DPM) of grief, healthy adaptation involves moving between loss orientation (LO), which focuses on coping with grief-related pain, and restoration orientation (RO), which focuses on managing practical daily-life challenges. Healthy grieving requires mourners to shift flexibly between these orientations. From an attachment perspective, LO activates the attachment system as the bereaved person confronts the emotional aspects of the loss, whereas RO temporarily deactivates it as the mourner sets grief aside to manage daily tasks.
When Clients Get Stuck in Loss or Restoration
When clients are stuck in LO, treatment may begin with affect-regulation strategies to reduce emotional arousal. Once they are ready, EMDR can address the trauma of the loss and present triggers, install future templates, and reprocess early childhood memories associated with an anxious attachment style. When clients are stuck in RO, treatment instead begins by helping them approach emotions and memories of the deceased gradually, with affect-regulation strategies used as needed. After they can maintain dual awareness and remain present with their emotions, EMDR can address memories related to the death and present triggers, install future templates, and reprocess early childhood memories associated with an avoidant attachment style, helping them move toward LO.
Rando’s Six “R” Processes of Mourning
Rando’s (1993) “R” Processes of Mourning organize six processes that support healthy accommodation to loss into three phases: avoidance, confrontation, and accommodation. In the avoidance phase, the mourner acknowledges the death and begins to understand its permanence. When the client meets readiness criteria, EMDR can target the loss as a traumatic event, beginning with the moment of shock or realization, such as receiving news of the death. In the confrontation phase, the mourner experiences and expresses the pain of the loss, mourns secondary losses, recalls the relationship realistically, and relinquishes old attachments to both the deceased and the assumptive world. EMDR processing can support access to positive memories, the formation of an adaptive inner representation, and the resolution of conflictual memories. In the accommodation phase, the mourner develops a new identity and reinvests in life without the loved one. EMDR can then identify and process difficulties that impede this reinvestment.
Comparing the Four Models
Together, the four approaches summarized in Table 1 offer complementary perspectives on grief. Attachment Theory explains how attachment patterns shape responses to loss; the Continuing Bonds Model describes how connection with the deceased can be transformed; the Dual Process Model emphasizes flexible movement between grief and daily-life demands; and the “R” Processes describe progression through mourning tasks. Within EMDR therapy, these perspectives help clinicians identify unresolved memories and patterns, select interventions that match each client’s needs and readiness, and support the integration of loss.
Table 1. Comparison of Four Therapeutic Approaches to Grief
| Approach | Core view of grief | Healthy adaptation | Clinical concern | EMDR application |
| Attachment Theory | Grief reflects disruption of the attachment bond and the mourner’s felt connection to the deceased. | The mourner develops an internal representation that preserves connection without physical proximity. | Attachment style may contribute to chronic distress, avoidance, or difficulty integrating the loss. | Reprocess the current loss, relevant triggers, and earlier maladaptively stored memories associated with attachment patterns. |
| Continuing Bonds Model | The relationship with the deceased continues psychologically rather than ending with death. | Positive, heartfelt memories form an adaptive inner representation of the deceased. | Conflictual or negative memories may interfere with a healthy continuing bond. | Process painful or conflictual memories so adaptive memories and a meaningful inner connection can emerge. |
| Dual Process Model | Adaptation involves oscillation between loss orientation (LO) and restoration orientation (RO). | The mourner moves flexibly between engaging with grief and addressing practical life changes. | Becoming stuck in LO may intensify chronic grief; becoming stuck in RO may reinforce avoidance. | Use affect-regulation and reprocessing strategies to restore flexible movement between LO and RO. |
| “R” Processes of Mourning | Mourning involves six processes across avoidance, confrontation, and accommodation phases. | The mourner recognizes the loss, reacts, recollects, relinquishes, readjusts, and reinvests in life. | Movement is not linear, and difficulties can arise at any process or phase. | Tailor preparation and reprocessing to the client’s current process, from recognizing the loss to reinvesting in life. |
