Grief is a primal emotion and is supposed to move. It ebbs and flows, crashes like waves, and sometimes it quietly recedes, letting us breathe again. But for many people who’ve experienced trauma, grief doesn’t move. It gets stuck. Frozen. Suspended in time like a scene on pause.
We call this frozen grief—and it’s more common than you might think.
What Is Frozen Grief?
Grief can get stuck! Frozen grief occurs when a person is unable to process or resolve a loss, often because of underlying trauma. It’s not just “complicated grief” or “prolonged mourning.” It’s grief that feels locked in place, sometimes numb, sometimes unbearably intense, and always unresolved.
You might recognize frozen grief if you:
- Can’t talk about a loss without feeling like it happened yesterday—even if it was years ago.
- Feel emotionally numb or detached from the loss entirely.
- Experience chronic anxiety, depression, or a lingering sense of incompleteness.
- Avoid reminders of the person or situation you lost because the pain feels too overwhelming—or too distant.
This state of “stuckness” is deeply tied to trauma, especially when the loss itself was traumatic or when it triggered older, painful experiences.
Trauma Disrupts Grief’s Natural Flow
To understand frozen grief, we have to look at how trauma impacts the brain. When we experience a traumatic event, the brain’s normal processing systems can become overwhelmed. The amygdala, our brain’s alarm center, goes into overdrive, while the hippocampus, which helps us place memories in time, can go offline. This can lead to fragmented memories, emotional flooding, or dissociation.
According to van der Kolk (2014), trauma is “not the story of something that happened back then, but the current imprint of that pain, horror, and fear living inside people.” In other words, The body keeps the score—and grief gets entangled in that score when trauma is involved.
When trauma hijacks the grief process, we do not fully integrate the loss. It remains frozen—both in memory and in the nervous system.
The Body Remembers
Neuroscience has confirmed what many therapists and trauma survivors have long known: the body remembers what the mind cannot. Bessel van der Kolk, Stephen Porges, and Peter Levine have all contributed to our understanding of how trauma lives in the body.
Porges’ Polyvagal Theory offers insight into how our nervous system responds to threat and loss. If a person is stuck in a dorsal vagal state—characterized by collapse, shutdown, or freeze—it becomes difficult to access the feelings and expressions typically associated with grieving. Crying, storytelling, connection, even just feeling sadness—those require safety in the nervous system that may not be available to someone with unresolved trauma.
Frozen Grief Can Look Like “Not Grieving at All”
People with frozen grief are often misunderstood. Others may assume they’ve “moved on” too quickly, or, conversely, that they’re being dramatic or stuck in the past. But frozen grief isn’t a choice. It’s their brain and body protecting them from a system that once had to shut down in order to survive.
A 2017 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) had significantly higher rates of prolonged and unresolved grief than those without PTSD. Trauma creates roadblocks in the brain’s ability to process emotional events in sequence and meaningfully link cause, effect, and resolution (Lenferink et al., 2017).
Thaw the Freeze: Heal from Frozen Grief
So how do you move forward when grief is frozen?
Here are a few key steps supported by research and clinical practice:
- Work with the Body, Not Just the Mind
Somatic therapies—like Somatic Experiencing (SE), Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, or trauma-informed yoga—help restore safety to the nervous system, making it possible to reconnect with frozen emotions. - Create Safe, Regulated Relationships
Healing happens in connection. Polyvagal-informed therapy emphasizes co-regulation—using relationships to help the nervous system shift out of survival states and into grounded presence. - Use Narrative Wisely
While traditional talk therapy can help, trauma-focused approaches like EMDR or Rapid Resolution Therapy work with the brain’s memory networks and inner parts in more integrated ways. - Honor the Loss Without Forcing Closure
Rituals, journaling, creative expression, or even just telling the story of the loss can be powerful when done gently, with support. Setting aside time to proactively look at photos of a lost loved one or listen to a song that makes one sad can gently ease into the pain without overwhelming the nervous system. - Be Patient With the Process
Frozen grief doesn’t thaw on command. It melts slowly, in the warmth of safety, over time.
Final Thoughts
Grief that’s frozen isn’t “wrong.” It’s a sign that something inside you needed to pause, to protect, to wait. Trauma interrupts grief not because you’re broken—but because your system was doing everything it could to survive and to keep you safe.
When we begin to understand that we can replace shame with compassion, and fear with curiosity. And slowly, the ice begins to melt.
Citations:
- van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.
- Lenferink, L. I., de Keijser, J., Eisma, M. C., Smid, G. E., & Boelen, P. A. (2017). Prolonged grief and post-traumatic stress disorder after loss: Latent class analysis suggests a general traumatic grief reaction pattern. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 495.
- Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. W.W. Norton & Company.
- Levine, P. A. (2010). In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. North Atlantic Books.
