Psychotherapy Can Improve Grief Disorder for Bereaved Persons

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 4, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Individual psychotherapy can improve grief disorder, grief, and depression symptoms for bereaved or soon-to-be bereaved persons, according to a review published online Feb. 3 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Sangeeta Ahluwalia, Ph.D., from RAND Health in Santa Monica, California, and colleagues synthesized the effects of health care interventions for bereaved children and adults in a review of 169 randomized controlled trials reported in 303 publications. The trials evaluated psychotherapy; expert-facilitated support groups; pharmacotherapy; peer support; self-help interventions; writing, music, and art therapy; enhanced provider contact; and integrative medicine for bereaved persons.

There was a substantial risk for bias in the studies, and children were only included in 15 randomized controlled trials. The researchers found that there was moderate-strength evidence for individual psychotherapy improving grief disorder, grief, and depression symptoms; low-strength evidence was found for expert-facilitated support groups and enhanced contact with health care providers improving depression symptoms. Conflicting results were seen for other interventions, or they indicated no benefit or had insufficient strength of evidence.

“Our understanding of how to support bereaved persons” health and well-being has evolved considerably, with significant growth in research in the past three decades,” the authors write. “Although a range of effective interventions exist for practitioners to offer their grieving patients, more information is needed on how to effectively target these interventions to the specific circumstances of bereaved persons and patients experiencing prolonged grief disorder.”

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