Framework 01, Doka and Martin
Instrumental and intuitive grieving
Some people work through a loss by feeling it. Others work through it by doing. Both are real.
Kenneth Doka and Terry Martin described at least two ways people process a loss. In the pattern they called intuitive, it arrives as waves of feeling and is worked through by expressing it. In the pattern they called instrumental, it is experienced more in thought and in the body, and it is worked through by doing: solving, building, fixing, working.
Most people are a blend of the two. The pattern is shaped by how people are raised, including what boys are taught, but it is not fixed by gender. Plenty of women grieve instrumentally and plenty of men grieve intuitively.
Why it matters
The instrumental pattern is not avoidance, denial, or a failure to grieve. Doka and Martin describe it as a legitimate way of processing loss. A lot of bereavement help is built around the intuitive pattern: talk about it, express it, let it out. Measured against that, a man who copes by rebuilding the fence can look like he is not coping at all.
The way you are doing this is not wrong. It has a name, and people have studied it for decades.
What it is not
It is not a type you are sorted into. It describes patterns, and most people move between them. It also does not mean that doing is always enough. Doka and Martin note that the instrumental pattern has its own blind spots, and the course on this framework covers what it does well and where it can leave things unattended.
This page teaches a framework. It does not tell you which pattern you have.
Where it shows up here