Dr. Ingela Thuné-Boyle
Health Psychologist
Online Therapy

Health psychology is a vital and evolving field that explores how psychological, behavioural, and social factors influence physical health and illness. While traditionally associated with chronic illness, pain management, and health behavior change, health psychology also plays a critical role in addressing trauma and grief. These profoundly human experiences, which are often undetectable by medical tests, significantly impact both mental health and physical well-being.

Grief is an intensely personal, unpredictable, and nonlinear experience. It touches every corner of a person’s life - mental, emotional, physical, spiritual - yet society often treats it as something to be managed quickly, quietly, and within an arbitrary timeframe. When individuals fail to conform to these unspoken rules of "acceptable mourning," they may be met not with empathy, but with judgment, discomfort, or outright criticism - a phenomenon known as grief shaming.

Experiencing a major bereavement is among the most painful and destabilizing events a person can face. When that loss is traumatic, unexpected, violent, or profoundly significant, it can leave deep psychological scars. For someone already living with a chronic illness, the impact of traumatic grief is compounded, creating a complex intersection of physical vulnerability and emotional devastation. Navigating this dual burden can feel like trying to heal two wounds at once

Grief is a natural reaction to loss, but it doesn’t follow the same path for everyone. When a death is sudden, violent, or deeply...