Grief Container

Purpose:

This directive helps clients externalize, honor, and safely “hold” aspects of their grief. Transforming a recycled box or container through collage, painting, and mixed media allows clients to symbolically create a space where their grief can rest. The focus is not on “getting rid of” grief, but on acknowledging its presence, understanding its messages, and exploring emerging needs.

• Provide a tangible, sensory-based method for exploring grief and grounding during painful emotions.

• Support Wolfelt’s principle of reconciling grief rather than resolving it—honoring the ongoing, nonlinear nature of mourning.

• Exploring a grief ritual to evaluate beliefs, create symbols, and identify feelings that need processing.

Theoretical Rationale:

The art directive explores a grief ritual of a symbolic container to meet clients’ emotional needs.

• Rituals can provide symbolic action for transformation and commemoration

• A sensory-based creative method for exploring grief encourages slow, attuned focus–supporting regulation, presence.

• A metaphorical approach can help individuals create psychological space around their grief, enabling them to engage in meaningful activities alongside their pain. (Practitioner perspectives on the use of acceptance and commitment therapy for bereavement support by Willi et al., 2024. doi: 10.1186/s12904-024-01390-x).

Art-Making:

Materials:

• Have boxes in varying sizes, from small jewelry boxes to puzzle boxes.

• Use acrylic paint markers/pens, textured/patterned papers, magazine cutouts, stickers, glue, modge podge, scissors and other collage materials.

• Use protective covering for surfaces and have cleaning materials handy—optional: ground music.

Instruction:

• Settle into mindfulness. Invite participants to notice their breathe and introduce metaphor.

Prompt: “Look at the container you’ve chosen. Think of it as a safe space for parts of your grief. Notice its shape, size, and texture. Consider what you might want to grief to feel when it “rests” inside: comfort? protection? warmth? boundaries?”

• Encourage clients to explore the supplies, choosing colors and materials that feel comforting. Reassure that there is no right or wrong way to do this. Let this box reflect the truth of their experience.

Prompt: “Decorate the outside using paint or collage materials. Let the colors, images, and textures symbolize the many layers of your grief–the marks it has left, the memories it carries, the flexibility and resilience you’ve had to develop. You may decide to write a mantra on the outside as a reminder of approaching your grief journey with compassion.

Prompt: “You may choose to decorate the inside. What environment feels right for your grief to rest within? If you feel called, place small items, images, or written words inside the container–reminders, messages, or symbols of what grief is teaching you.”

• Give time check-ins: halfway, 5 mins left, 1-min warning before closing art-making phase

Reflection Questions/Prompts:

• What was it like to create a container specifically for your grief?

• What messages does your grief have for you today? What might grief be asking for: rest, space, connection, boundaries, comfort, acknowledgement?

• What needs surfaced for you during this process?

• How might this container support you between sessions?