For Them or For You? The Subtle Self-Soothing Trap in Grief Support
Grief Action™ 
Even skilled professionals can feel grief anxiety and resort to self-soothing language. Here’s how to recognise, reflect, and respond.
It Sounds Kind. But Who Is It Really For?
Grief conversations are among the most emotionally charged interactions professionals face. Whether you are a therapist, nurse, GP, palliative care or funeral professional, social worker, HR professional or teacher, chances are you have sat across from someone whose pain felt so big it seemed to fill the room. In those moments, even the most experienced among us can feel unsteady. We want to help and offer relief. We want to say something that makes a difference.
In those moments, it is easy to reach for a phrase that sounds thoughtful and reassuring. Something that soothes. These phrases are typically well-rehearsed, drawn from what we have heard or said before. But we rarely stop to ask, “Who are these phrases really soothing?”
Grief Anxiety and Self-Soothing
‘Grief anxiety’ describes the internal discomfort that a professional feels when confronted with another person’s grief. It reflects the gap between one’s desire to help and one’s uncertainty about how to do so effectively. Without tools or training, this anxiety can quietly steer communication away from presence and toward reassurance.
Professionals don’t set out to centre themselves. But in moments of emotional intensity, our nervous systems tend to want to reach for something soothing. We try to regulate the room, including our own internal state.
Self-soothing statements are not dismissive on the surface. These statements sound gentle, optimistic, even wise. But the deeper function of these phrases is to reduce tension for the helper, not the griever.
Self-soothing statements take the form of polished phrases that take the sting out of someone else’s truth. They are a bridge intended to distance us from distress and grief anxiety.
- “At least they are not suffering anymore.”
- “You were lucky to have such a close relationship.”
- “Time heals all wounds.”
- “They would not want you to be sad.”
- “You are doing so well.”
- “You are so strong.”
Self-soothing language shows up when we are not just holding someone else's emotion but also trying to manage our own. When grief brings up a sense of professional helplessness or anxiety, we try to reach for something that restores calm and talks the pain away.
The Impact of Self-Soothing Statements on Grieving People
Self-soothing statements can make the grieving person feel unseen. Their experience may feel minimised or redirected. They may perceive pressure to appear strong or grateful, when what they may want is permission to express the fullness of their pain.
Each of these self-soothing statements places subtle pressure on the griever to move away from pain. Some imply that there is a silver lining to the loss. Others shift the focus toward recovery or resilience. All of them steer the conversation in a direction that feels safer or more tolerable; sometimes safer or more tolerable for the professional delivering them. This pattern is rarely intentional; it is a reflex. It is a psychological mechanism to help us regulate our own discomfort when we are faced with another person’s suffering.
These grief anxiety moments do not typically result in confrontation. Most grieving clients and patients do not challenge us in the face of a self-soothing statement. Instead, they nod or smile politely. They may even agree. But inside, they can feel the sting of disconnection. They may shut down or withdraw emotionally. They may learn that it is safer to stay on the surface than to speak deeply about their sorrow.
Over time this creates a dynamic where grief appears ostensibly acknowledged, but it is not explored in depth. The professional-patient space becomes polite rather than real. That is not what most professionals want, but it is what self-soothing language can create if it is left unexamined.
Why Professionals Are Not Immune to Grief Anxiety
Even those who specialise in trauma or crisis intervention can find themselves instinctively trying to soften grief when it becomes intense. There are reasons for this. Allied health and healthcare professionals have likely been trained in models that emphasise progress, treatment goals, and symptom reduction. Grief does not fit easily within those paradigms. Grief is not something to be resolved. Grief is not a problem with a solution. It is a process, and it resists structure, control, and predictability.
In addition, many professionals have not had meaningful grief training as part of their education. We learn how to diagnose, formulate, and intervene. But few of us learn how to sit with someone whose pain cannot be fixed. This leaves us exposed. We are used to helping, but not always to holding.
When we lack the tools to support grief effectively, we compensate. Sometimes we compensate by avoiding the topic. Other times we reach for language that makes us feel more competent, more in control, or less anxious.
Recognising Your Own Patterns
To support grieving people well, we must begin with ourselves. That means looking at the ways we cope with pain across the professional desk, in the clinic, or at the bedside. It means reflecting on our habits and being willing to recognise our own grief anxiety and any accompanying self-soothing.
Shifting from reflexive to reflective practice takes purposeful effort. Our own losses, our own coping styles, and our own fears can shape how we respond to someone else’s grief. The key is not to eliminate discomfort, but to build our capacity to stay with it. That requires reflection. It requires noticing when we are trying to change the subject, when we are filling space too quickly, or when we are offering words that sound comforting on the surface but lack depth or impact.
This kind of insight is difficult in the moment. That is why professional supervision is so important. Supervision creates space to reflect on language, intention, and impact. It allows us to bring curiosity to our habits and make conscious decisions about how we want to respond next time.
At Grief Action, we offer supervision that supports professionals across disciplines. Our supervision services aim to facilitate insight, depth, and steadiness in your practice. Visit our website for more information about our Grief Action case consultation, individual supervision, and group supervision services.
What Else Can Be Said?
Moving away from self-soothing language does not mean saying nothing. Silence can be powerful, but words still matter. The goal is to speak in a way that holds space rather than fills it.
That is where the Grief Action course entitled 30 Essential Prompts for Purposeful Conversations About Grief comes in. This course offers professionals a structured collection of impactful prompts that support authentic, meaningful dialogue.
The prompts are grouped by theme and designed for real-world use. The prompts do not offer solutions or try to fix grief. They invite reflection. They honour emotion. They offer language that allows the grieving person to stay in their experience, without needing to defend or justify it.
This is what grief literacy looks like in practice. It is not about memorising statements. It is about understanding what the grieving person requires in the moment and choosing words that respect that.
A Different Standard of Grief Care
You do not need to work alone. Professional support is available, as are practical tools. If you are ready to bring more clarity, care, and confidence into your grief work:
- Book an individual or group supervision session to reflect on your grief conversations.
- Enrol in the 30 Essential Prompts for Purposeful Conversations About Grief to strengthen your ability to communicate in ways that truly connect.
When your words are chosen with reflective awareness, they do more than make space. Words chosen with reflective awareness interrupt the reflex to self-soothe, ease grief anxiety, and offer something far rarer than comfort: The courage to stay with what is real.
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📸 Photo by Vasilis Caravitis on Unsplash
Categories: : Grief Action, Grief Anxiety, Grief Education, Grief Literacy, Grief Support, Grief Therapy, Self-Soothing
