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Loss:​ The event that causes grief: e.g.,  a loved one's passing; miscarriage; stillbirth;

terminal illness; a difficult medical diagnosis; divorce; a breakup with or separation from a significant other; friendship loss; estrangement from family; a difficult move;  job loss.

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Types of loss include: functional loss; intrapsychic loss; and, role loss.

Kenneth R. Mitchell and Herbert Anderson note that the unconscious  "does not

distinguish between the loss of a person or thing," for "losses derive their psychological power from the primordial sense of the loss experience . . . "any loss. is at root experienced as a loss of the part of the self." (All Our Losses, All our Griefs, 51.)

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Grief: A subjective reaction to "a real, perceived, or anticipated loss . . . whether the loss is physical or tangible, such as a death, significant injury, or loss of property; alternatively, symbolic and intangible such as the loss of a dream."

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Types of grief include: anticipatory grief, complicated grief, and disenfranchised grief.

"The intensity of grief will differ, depending on many variables such as the meaning of a loss for the individual experiencing it. It should be recognized that loss does not inevitably create grief. Some individuals may be so disassoci­ated from the loss object that they experience little or no grief, or their response may be characterized by intense denial."

*Note: There are no precise stages of grief; rather, as some experts note, it is like an ocean that ebbs and flows.

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Bereavement: . . . "An objective state of loss . If one experiences a loss, one is bereaved. Bereavement refers to the fact of loss, whereas grief is the subjective response to that state of loss." 

Mourning: ". . . The intrapsychic process through which a grieving individual gradually adapts to the loss, a process that has been referred to as “grieving” or “grief work.”

The term also "refer[s] to the social aspect of grief, the norms and patterned behaviors and rituals through which an individual is recognized as bereaved and socially expresses grief."

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Grief, Bereavement, and Mourning: Dr. Kenneth J. Doka, "Grief, Anticipatory Grief, Disenfranchised Grief, and Complicated Grief," Living With Heartbreak: Grief, Loss, and Bereavement: A Spiritual Care Association Core Knowledge Course