Coping with Loss, Grief, and Bereavement

Dear Colleagues,

Loss is an inevitable part of life. Whether experienced as a primary loss or through the secondary losses that accompany it, loss can profoundly disrupt individuals’ sense of self, identity, relationships, routines, anticipated futures, and social or economic stability. Such disruptions often reverberate across physical, emotional, cognitive, behavioural, social, and spiritual dimensions of life. While grief and bereavement are frequently associated with death, losses may also be symbolic, anticipated, ambiguous, cumulative, or disenfranchised, and may arise across the lifespan in diverse personal, social, and cultural contexts.

Contemporary scholarship increasingly recognises grief as a dynamic, non‑linear process shaped by personal histories, social relationships, cultural norms, spirituality, and structural conditions, rather than a universal or time‑limited response. Importantly, most people do not require professional intervention to cope with loss. This underscores the need for deeper understanding of how individuals, families, and communities navigate grief, draw upon existing resources, and develop adaptive ways of coping, meaning‑making, and transformation following loss.

This Special Issue invites original manuscripts that advance understanding of coping with loss, grief, and bereavement across diverse contexts and populations. We welcome contributions that explore how people respond to loss, draw on personal, relational, cultural, spiritual, or structural resources, and navigate processes of adjustment, resilience, or transformation. We particularly encourage contributions that amplify voices and experiences that remain under‑represented in the literature, including (but not limited to) men, Indigenous peoples, prisoners, ex-convicts, migrants and refugees, individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and those experiencing socially invisible or marginalised losses.

We welcome submissions addressing losses such as (but not limited to) ambiguous or disenfranchised loss, anticipated or sudden loss, pregnancy or perinatal loss, grandparent loss, and non‑death‑related losses. Manuscripts may examine spiritual, cultural, social, cognitive, physiological, or psychological dimensions of coping, as well as relational, community, or systems‑level perspectives.

A wide range of methodological approaches is encouraged, including original research articles using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods, as well as systematic reviews and meta-analyses following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Contributions that engage explicitly with theoretical frameworks of grief, coping, meaning reconstruction, continuing bonds, or post‑loss transformation are particularly welcomed.

Through this Special Issue, we aim to advance inclusive, nuanced, and interdisciplinary understandings of how people live with, adapt to, and grow through experiences of loss.

Dr. Tosin Popoola
Dr. Mary Rose McDonough
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• death and dying
• loss
• bereavement
• grief
• perinatal loss
• pediatric loss
• coping with loss
• adjustment to loss
• meaning-making