Healing From Grief & Loss | Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2025

⏱️ 153 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My guest is Dr. Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Arizona and a world expert on the science of grief and loss. We discuss what happens in the brain and body when we grieve, the role of dopamine and yearning in the grieving process, the health risks of getting stuck at particular stages of grief and how to move through loss while also deeply honoring the person, animal or thing that is no longer with us. Dr. O’Connor explains that grief involves cycling back and forth between protest and despair (often guilt and anger too) and explains science-supported ways to move through that process in the healthiest possible way. Everyone experiences grief and loss at some point. Dr. O’Connor provides valuable knowledge and tools to help you navigate grief under any circumstance. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Wealthfront**: https://wealthfront.com/huberman BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/huberman Helix Sleep: https://helixsleep.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman **This experience may not be representative of the experience of other clients of Wealthfront, and there is no guarantee that all clients will have similar experiences. Cash Account is offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC. The Annual Percentage Yield (“APY”) on cash deposits as of December 27,‬ 2024, is representative, subject to change, and requires no minimum. Funds in the Cash Account are swept to partner banks where they earn the variable‭ APY. Promo terms and FDIC coverage conditions apply. Same-day withdrawal or instant payment transfers may be limited by destination institutions, daily transaction caps, and by participating entities such as Wells Fargo, the RTP® Network, and FedNow® Service. New Cash Account deposits are subject to a 2-4 day holding period before becoming available for transfer. Timestamps 00:00:00 Mary-Frances O’Connor 00:02:22 Grief vs Grieving; Love & Bonding, Gone Yet Everlasting 00:07:42 Sponsors: Wealthfront & BetterHelp 00:10:29 Sudden vs Slow Death, Attachment, Reframing Relationship 00:14:52 Religion, Integrating the New Relationship 00:20:46 Yearning, Dopamine, Brain, Addiction 00:27:58 Culture & Grief Literacy; Protest, Despair & Hope, New Relationships 00:40:09 Sponsors: AG1 & Helix Sleep 00:43:21 Protest, Despair & Transmutation; Changing Attachment Hierarchy 00:52:04 Bereavement Support, Medical Risk 01:05:27 Culture, Alcohol & Death; Dying of a Broken Heart, Medical Risk 01:13:40 Sponsor: Function 01:15:28 Navigating Grief, Emotions & Body, Tool: Progressive Muscle Relaxation 01:23:57 Grief Stages; Permission & Coping, Judgment & Guilt; Lessons from Grief 01:35:44 Grieving Suicide, Rumination, Tool: Shifting Environment 01:47:24 Belief Systems, Religion & Grief 01:54:17 Afterlife, Contemplating Death 01:58:35 Tools: Contemplating Death; Life Celebration, Terror Management, Empathy 02:07:46 Mental Oscillation, Dual Model of Bereavement 02:14:00 Avoidance; Remembering a Loved One, Resilience; Getting Worse & Seeking Professional Help 02:22:15 Time Perception & End of Life, Motivation & Energy 02:30:01 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow & Reviews, Sponsors, YouTube Feedback, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
0:08.9	I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
0:15.7	My guest today is Dr. Mary Francis O'Connor. Dr. O'Connor is a professor of clinical psychology
0:21.5	and psychiatry at the University of Arizona,
0:24.2	where she directs the grief loss and social stress laboratory.
0:27.8	Today we discuss the neuroscience of attachment and loss
0:30.7	and why grief literally feels painful in our bodies.
0:34.0	We also discuss the very real and serious health risks
0:36.8	to being in a state of grief.
0:38.6	Throughout the episode, we discuss ways to navigate and recover from grief, either from the death of a person, the death of an animal, or from the loss of a relationship, job, or other role in our lives.
0:49.1	As you'll soon learn, Dr. O'Connor's research is both fascinating and incredibly surprising. She discovered,
0:55.2	for instance, that grief is best understood through the lens of human attachment and that
0:59.4	dopamine, a molecule that we normally hear about in the context of motivation and pleasure,
1:04.5	creates a sense of yearning that is central to the grieving process. She explains it to effectively
1:09.0	move through grief. We have to work with both our
1:11.4	feelings of protest and our feelings of despair. Those two things, the feelings of protest that we
1:16.8	refuse to let go or our mind and body just don't want to let go, as well as the feelings of despair
1:22.5	that we don't know what to do, that we feel like it's an endless sense of loss. Both of those feelings
1:27.1	have to be acknowledged. And then we loss. Both of those feelings have to be
1:27.6	acknowledged. And then we have to transmute those feelings into actions and feelings that
1:32.4	maintain the memory of the person or role that we played in an active way and yet move forward.
1:38.7	By the end of today's conversation, you'll have a much deeper understanding of grief,
	...

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