The Importance of Continuing Bonds with Grieving Clients
And How This Training Will Help You
When supporting clients who are grieving, it’s essential to shift away from outdated ideas that suggest grief is about “letting go” or “moving on.” Instead, we now understand that maintaining a connection—often called a continuing bond—with the person who died is a healthy, natural, and meaningful part of the grieving process.
For professionals working with grieving clients, understanding this concept and learning how to help individuals foster continuing bonds can make a profound difference. Specialized training, like Evergreen’s grief-informed certification, provides you with the knowledge and tools to guide clients in honoring and maintaining these bonds while adjusting to life after loss.
What Are Continuing Bonds?
The continuing bonds theory challenges the idea that grief is about detaching from the person who died. Instead, it recognizes that relationships do not end with death. They change, but the connection continues.
For grieving individuals, continuing bonds might look like:
Talking to or writing letters to the person who died.
Sharing stories or memories about them.
Honoring special dates like birthdays or anniversaries.
Engaging in activities that the person loved or valued.
Carrying on their legacy through causes, traditions, or creative expressions.
This connection allows the person who died to remain part of the individual’s life in a new way—bringing comfort, purpose, and ongoing meaning.
Why Are Continuing Bonds Important?
Grief Isn’t About “Letting Go”
Telling clients to “move on” or “find closure” can unintentionally invalidate their grief. It creates pressure to sever connections with the person who died, which often intensifies pain and feelings of isolation.Promotes Resilience
Maintaining bonds allows clients to process their loss while still feeling connected to the person they love. This connection can foster resilience and provide comfort as they adapt to life without their physical presence.Keeps Meaning Alive
For many, grief is about finding new ways to integrate the person’s life and legacy into their own. Continuing bonds help individuals make meaning from their loss, allowing the memory of their loved one to enrich their lives moving forward.Supports Cultural Sensitivity
In many cultures, continuing bonds are already deeply embedded in grief practices. Whether through altars, ancestral remembrance, or annual traditions, maintaining connections is a natural and sacred way to honor loved ones.Strengthens Relationships
Continuing bonds often encourage open conversations about grief within families and communities. This can foster connection, reduce isolation, and help families remember their loved ones together.
How Can Training Help You Support Clients?
Understanding the importance of continuing bonds is one thing—knowing how to incorporate it into your work with grieving clients is another. Evergreen’s grief-informed certification provides the tools, strategies, and confidence to help you:
Introduce the Concept: Learn how to help clients reframe grief as a continuing relationship rather than a loss they must overcome.
Normalize the Experience: Recognize and validate clients’ natural desire to maintain connections, removing the stigma of “holding on” or being “stuck”.
Facilitate Meaningful Practices: Gain skills to help clients identify healthy ways to keep their loved one’s memories alive—whether through writing, art, traditions, or legacy projects.
Address Individual Needs: Understand how continuing bonds may look different across ages, personalities, and cultural backgrounds, tailoring your approach for each client.
Promote Emotional Balance: Help clients create space for continuing bonds while still engaging in their day-to-day lives and finding a sense of purpose moving forward.
Through this training, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of how to incorporate continuing bonds into grief support in a way that feels authentic and empowering to your clients.
The Impact of Continuing Bonds on Your Clients
By guiding your clients to maintain continuing bonds, you help them reshape their grief experience. Instead of feeling like they must “move on” without their loved one, they learn to carry that connection with them—transforming their grief into a relationship that provides comfort, strength, and meaning.
For children, this might mean writing letters or drawing pictures for their loved ones. For adults, it might involve storytelling, carrying on family traditions, or pursuing causes that mattered to the person who died.
As a grief-informed professional, you’ll have the tools to walk alongside your clients as they create these meaningful bonds, supporting them as they integrate their grief into their lives in a healthy and sustainable way.
Why This Training Matters
Grief is complex, and every client’s experience is unique. Continuing bonds provide a compassionate, person-centered approach to grief care—one that honors the ongoing relationship while helping clients adjust to a new reality.
Through Evergreen’s training, you’ll:
Deepen your understanding of grief as an ongoing process, not something to “fix” or “finish”.
Gain practical tools to help clients explore, express, and nurture their continuing bonds.
Feel confident guiding clients through this healthy and meaningful aspect of their grief.
If you’re a therapist, counselor, educator, or professional working with individuals navigating loss, this training will empower you to offer the kind of support that truly makes a difference.
A New Way to Support Grief
Continuing bonds remind us that love does not end when someone dies—it changes form. As a grief-informed professional, you have the opportunity to guide clients toward a healthier relationship with their loss, one that allows them to hold onto love, memories, and meaning.
If you’re ready to deepen your knowledge and make a meaningful impact, Evergreen’s grief-informed certification will equip you with the skills to support your clients with compassion, confidence, and care.
Learn more about how you can become certified—and start transforming the way you approach grief support today.
