CONTINUING BONDS
We Don’t Let Go—We Learn to Carry Them
Good morning.
I want to begin with a question.
What if everything we have been taught about grief is wrong?
What if healing does not mean letting go?
What if moving forward does not mean leaving someone behind?
And what if the relationship we have with someone who has died doesn’t actually end when their physical life ends?
For many years, traditional models of grief emphasized detachment. The assumption was that, in order to heal, we eventually needed to loosen our emotional attachment to the person who died.
But grief research has increasingly challenged that assumption.
In 1996, Dennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman, and Steven Nickman introduced what became one of the most influential perspectives in contemporary bereavement research: Continuing Bonds.
The idea is simple—but profound:
Death ends physical presence. It does not necessarily end psychological relationship.
The American Psychological Association describes a continuing bond as the emotional attachment a bereaved person continues to maintain with the deceased, including the ways that relationship can be reconstructed and integrated into the survivor’s life.
And when we think about that, we realize that continuing bonds are everywhere.
We keep their photographs.
We save their handwriting.
We listen to their favorite song.
We cook their favorite meal.
We wear something that belonged to them.
We tell their stories.
We celebrate their birthdays.
We continue traditions they started.
We may even find ourselves talking to them.
“Mom, I wish you were here.”
“Dad, what would you have done?”
“I know you would be so proud of me.”
And sometimes we experience something even more subtle.
We hear their voice in our memory.
We remember exactly what they would have said.
We recognize their mannerisms in ourselves.
We catch ourselves doing something they taught us.
And suddenly we realize:
They are gone—but they are still influencing who we are.
That is a continuing bond.
The Relationship Changes
One of the most important things we can teach people about grief is that the goal is not necessarily to eliminate the relationship.
The goal is to transform the relationship.
Before death, the relationship may be external.
We call them.
We hug them.
We sit beside them.
We hear their voice.
We reach for them.
After death, the relationship often becomes internal.
We remember.
We imagine.
We reflect.
We carry their values.
We continue their traditions.
We integrate their influence into our identity.
The relationship changes from physical presence to psychological presence.
And that distinction matters enormously.
Because when we tell a grieving person, “You need to let go,” they may hear something very different.
They may hear:
“You need to stop loving them.”
“You need to stop thinking about them.”
“You need to get over it.”
“You need to move on.”
But grief does not operate according to a calendar.
And love does not have an expiration date.
What Does the Research Tell Us?
This is not simply a sentimental idea.
The research has become substantial.
A systematic review published in Death Studies examined 79 studies on continuing bonds following bereavement.
The researchers identified themes involving comfort and distress, relational identity, meaning reconstruction, spirituality, and the transformation of the relationship with the deceased.
That is significant.
Because it tells us that continuing bonds can become part of the way human beings reconstruct their lives after loss.
But—and this is clinically important—the research does not say that every continuing bond is healthy.
And this is where our responsibility as clinicians, counselors, educators, advocates, clergy, and professionals becomes important.
We should not ask simply:
“Does this person still have a bond with the deceased?”
Of course they do.
The better question is:
“How is that bond functioning in their life?”
Healthy Integration Versus Maladaptive Attachment
From a clinical perspective, continuing bonds are not inherently adaptive or maladaptive.
Their impact depends upon how they are integrated.
Healthy integration is characterized by flexibility.
The deceased remains emotionally meaningful, but the relationship has been internalized in a way that supports functioning, identity development, and engagement with life.
The person can remember without becoming completely overwhelmed.
They can experience sadness—and eventually experience joy again.
They can maintain relationships.
They can pursue future goals.
They can laugh without feeling that laughter betrays the person who died.
They can love again without believing that loving someone new means loving the deceased less.
And they can carry the person forward without remaining psychologically trapped in the moment of death.
The bond becomes a source of:
meaning, identity, guidance, connection, and continuity.
But maladaptive attachment looks different.
The bond becomes rigid.
Intrusive.
Life-constraining.
The deceased becomes the central organizing figure of the person’s psychological world in a way that prevents adaptation to the reality of the loss.
Persistent yearning may dominate functioning.
The person may withdraw from life.
They may avoid new relationships because moving forward feels disloyal.
They may remain psychologically anchored to the circumstances of the death.
They may believe that experiencing happiness means abandoning the person.
In those circumstances, the bond doesn’t evolve.
It becomes an anchor rather than a bridge.
And that is a critical clinical distinction.
Research has found that different forms of continuing bonds can have different associations with grief and depression. A prospective study, for example, found that different manifestations of continuing bonds were not uniformly associated with later adjustment.
More recent research has similarly demonstrated that continuing bonds can involve both connection and distress, depending upon the form the bond takes and the individual’s circumstances.
So we should never tell a grieving person:
“Your continuing bond is good.”
Nor should we automatically tell them:
“Your continuing bond is unhealthy.”
Instead, we need to ask:
“Is this bond helping you live?”
The Clinical Question
I believe that may be one of the most important questions we can ask in grief work:
Does the bond allow the person to live—or does it prevent them from living?
Does the memory create connection?
Or does it create paralysis?
Does it support meaning-making?
Or does it maintain acute suffering?
Can the person remember the deceased while remaining engaged in the present?
Can they honor the past while building a future?
Can they say:
“I miss you terribly—and I am still going to live.”
That is integration.
And that is very different from forgetting.
Grief Is Not Just Losing a Person
We also need to understand that grief is not simply the loss of a human being.
We lose a relationship.
We may lose a role.
A future.
A sense of identity.
A family structure.
A daily routine.
A source of security.
Sometimes we lose the person we were when that person was alive.
A wife may not simply be grieving her husband.
She may be grieving being someone’s wife.
A child may not simply be grieving a parent.
They may be grieving the person they were when their parent was alive.
A parent may not simply be grieving a child.
They may be grieving an entire imagined future.
So grief requires more than emotional recovery.
It requires identity reconstruction.
And this is one reason continuing bonds can be so important.
They can help answer:
“Who am I now that you are gone?”
Meaning Reconstruction
One of the central themes identified in the continuing-bonds literature is meaning reconstruction.
We begin to ask:
“What did this relationship mean?”
“What did this person teach me?”
“What did I learn from loving them?”
“What part of them do I want to carry forward?”
“How has their life changed mine?”
And perhaps the most powerful question:
“What will I do with the love that remains?”
Because grief is love with nowhere physical to go.
So we have to give that love somewhere to go.
Sometimes we give it to our children.
Sometimes to our work.
Sometimes to our faith.
Sometimes to our community.
Sometimes to helping another person who is suffering.
Sometimes we carry forward something the person taught us.
And sometimes we become the living continuation of something they believed in.
The Spiritual Dimension
For many people, continuing bonds also have a spiritual dimension.
The 2023 systematic review identified spirituality and spiritual belief as important themes in the continuing-bonds literature.
For people of faith, the relationship may continue through prayer, spiritual traditions, belief in an afterlife, or the conviction that death does not represent the ultimate end of relationship.
And even when people hold different spiritual beliefs, there can still be a profound psychological truth:
The people we love become part of the story of who we are.
Their fingerprints remain on our lives.
Their words become part of our internal dialogue.
Their values become part of our decision-making.
Their love becomes part of our capacity to love others.
Their memory becomes part of our identity.
We Don’t Have to Choose Between Grief and Life
One of the greatest misconceptions about grief is that we have to choose.
Either we grieve—or we live.
But healthy adaptation allows us to do both.
We can miss someone and still laugh.
We can cry and still have a beautiful day.
We can remember someone and still create new memories.
We can love someone who died and still love someone who is alive.
We can honor the past without surrendering our future.
And we can experience happiness without guilt.
Because happiness does not mean:
“I don’t miss you anymore.”
It can mean:
“I am learning how to live with the love and the loss.”
The Goal Is Not to Forget
So perhaps we need to change the language we use with grieving people.
Instead of:
“You need to let go.”
We might say:
“You can learn to carry the relationship differently.”
Instead of:
“You need to move on.”
We might say:
“You can move forward while carrying what this person meant to you.”
Instead of:
“It’s time to get over it.”
We might say:
“There is no need to get over love. There is a need to learn how to live with loss.”
Because the goal isn’t to erase the relationship.
The goal is to transform it.
From presence to memory.
From touch to meaning.
From conversation to internal dialogue.
From physical relationship to psychological relationship.
From acute pain to integrated love.
A Message for Those Who Are Grieving
If you are grieving someone today, I want you to hear this:
You do not have to apologize for still loving them.
You do not have to apologize for missing them.
You do not have to stop saying their name.
You do not have to throw away every photograph.
You do not have to erase the memories.
And you do not have to feel guilty when you begin to smile again.
Your healing does not betray them.
Your happiness does not erase them.
Your future does not diminish their importance.
You can carry them and continue living.
The Final Transformation
Ultimately, continuing bonds teach us something much bigger about the human experience.
We are relational beings.
We are shaped by the people we love.
And when someone dies, something inside of us changes permanently.
But permanent change does not have to mean permanent destruction.
The relationship can evolve.
The love can remain.
The meaning can deepen.
And the person can become part of our internal world.
So I want to leave you with three questions.
When you think about someone you have lost:
What did they give you?
What did they teach you?
And perhaps most importantly:
What will you do with what they left inside of you?
Because perhaps healing isn’t about letting go.
Perhaps healing is about learning how to hold two truths at the same time:
They are gone.
And—
They are still part of me.
They may no longer walk beside us.
But they can walk within us—
in our memories,
in our values,
in our traditions,
in our stories,
in our faith,
in our choices,
and in the way we love the people who are still here.
So no—
we don’t have to let go.
We learn to carry.
We carry the memory.
We carry the meaning.
We carry the lessons.
And most importantly—
we carry the love.
Because sometimes the deepest form of healing isn’t saying goodbye.
It is being able to say:
**”You are no longer here in the way you once were.
But you will always be a part of who I am.
And I will carry the love forward.”**
Dr. Kathie Mathis, Psy.D