Finding the Right Grief Support Group for Healing

Experts share insights on choosing the best national or local community for comfort after your loss

Sharon Jayson,

AARP

Comments

Published October 10, 2025

a person colored blue with a hand showing a book

Molly Snee

Navigating the territory of bereavement and grief can be overwhelming amid daily life demands. For those in the throes of mourning and lingering sadness, a support group may help ease the pain and provide some comfort.

And those who have made grief their life’s work say finding the right group makes all the difference.

“It’s important to look for grief support that will not necessarily make you feel better, but makes you feel understood,” says Mary Lamia, a clinical psychologist in private practice in Marin County, California. “It’s not about getting over it, but continuing to live with it. Then it’s a good support group.”

Understanding grief

Grief is defined as an individual’s emotional response to loss. The American Psychological Association (APA) defines it as “the anguish experienced after significant loss, usually the death of a beloved person.” The APA refers to bereavement as “the condition of having lost a loved one to death.”

Join Our Fight for Caregivers

Here’s what you can do to support family caregivers:

Sign up to become part of AARP’s online advocacy network and urge lawmakers to pass legislation to save caregivers time and money.
Find out more about how we’re fighting for you every day in Congress and across the country.
AARP is your fierce defender on the issues that matter to people age 50-plus. Become a member or renew your membership today.

“We grieve because we remember when things were different,” says Lamia, who is also a professor emeritus at the Wright Institute, a psychology graduate school in Berkeley, California. “We grieve because we have positive memories of the person we lost. When those positive memories come up, they create distress and anguish. … It’s the interface of our positive memories and our emotions around loss that create the experience around grief.”

Those who counsel the bereaved and help them through the grief process say a variety of social and spiritual support groups exist, but finding them isn’t always easy. Trying to assist the grieving inspired licensed clinical psychologist Wendy Lichtenthal, a grief specialist for more than two decades, to found the Center for the Advancement of Bereavement Care at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Health System and the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The bereavement center was launched in 2023 with Lichtenthal serving as its director.

“The goal of a support group is to leave people feeling less different and alone, not more,” she says.

Exploring specialized groups

When possible, targeted or specialized support groups — focused on an illness, such as cancer or Alzheimer’s, or to a bereaved relationship, such as the loss of a parent, spouse, child or sibling — can be especially helpful, Lichtenthal says.

Most Popular

“You stand a better shot of feeling like a group is a fit when there are commonalities among the members. A lot of my work has been with individuals who lost someone to cancer, and they’ve shared how it can be difficult to be in a group with people who haven’t experienced what’s hard about the cancer and caregiving experience journey,” she says.

But even so, other situations may arise and the group just doesn’t feel right, she says.

“Maybe you end up in a group with people who are really talkative, and it feels harder for you to express your grief. In those cases, it can be hard to tell if it’s group support that isn’t a fit for you or if it’s that group specifically that wasn’t a fit,” Lichtenthal says.

Lamia, author of the 2022 book Grief Isn’t Something to Get Over: Finding a Home for Memories and Emotions After Losing a Loved One, says finding the right group is about resonating with someone in the group.

“We have to ask ourselves, ‘Does sharing stories with others help me? Does another person’s story resonate with me, or does it make me feel worse?’ ” she says. “Grief is such a personal experience. No two people grieve alike. Where it helps is to find somebody who does understand and doesn’t judge.”

Groups help ‘encounter the pain’

It is important to have a realistic understanding of what a typical support group does and doesn’t do.

Sometimes people think the point of going to a support group is to ease the pain, but “hurting is part of healing,” says grief counselor Alan Wolfelt of Fort Collins, Colorado.

As the founder and director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition, which he launched in 1985, Wolfelt has written more than 90 books on grief. His most recent, Creating Your Grief Plan: The Power of Understanding and Befriending the Six Universal Needs of Mourning, was published last month.

“Mourning is the shared response to loss. When you mourn, it hurts,” he says. “Many people think you’re coming to a group to not hurt. It’s a dance between evading the pain but needing to encounter the pain.”

More help at the national level

Grieving.com, an online grief support community
Griefshare.org, a nondenominational, nonprofit ministry
American Cancer Society, a nonprofit that supports those with cancer and their families
CancerCare, a national organization that supports those with cancer and their families
The Mended Hearts, Inc., a national, nonprofit cardiovascular health support organization
The Compassionate Friends, a national nonprofit that helps families who have lost a child
Soaring Spirits International, a nonprofit that connects widowed individuals

Lamia says the best chance of finding a beneficial group may mean trying two or three. “They do provide a place for our feelings and lessen feelings of isolation,” he says. “But if a particular support group does not resonate, it’s essential to try another.”

However, Wolfelt says it’s important not to go to the opposite extreme and “get into a shopping habit.” He also says the size of your local community will impact your options. Less populated areas will more likely have mixed loss groups that aim to help those with varied situations rather than loss-specific groups.

“Do your homework before you go to groups,” says Wolfelt.

Start your search

The experts offer advice on finding support groups, including:

Start local: Hospices, hospitals and funeral homes provide support groups and maintain referrals to others, including those at senior centers as well as groups offering specialized support, such as by illness, religion or sexual orientation.
Ask a friend or family member whose experience with a support group proved beneficial; word of mouth can simplify the search for help
Employ AI. It can be a valuable tool for focused support group searches in your local area.
At the national level: Check websites, including the Center for the Advancement of Bereavement Care, the Center for Loss & Life Transition and the Center for Prolonged Grief.
Experts warn not to dwell on a group leader’s credentials or title, but rather on their grief training. A counselor, therapist or psychologist may be a professional, but only peripherally trained in grief. Other groups may have peer leaders, who may be well trained or have taken an online course. For those who want a medical practitioner: Physicians such as geriatricians, psychiatrists and palliative medicine specialists typically do not lead support groups, but may offer referrals.

%{postComment}%

Sharon Jayson is a contributing writer who covers aging, family, health care and retirement. She previously worked for USA Today and the Austin American-Statesman, and she also has written for Kaiser Health News, Time magazine and The Washington Post.