Framework 02, Stroebe and Schut
The dual process model
Coping moves back and forth between the loss itself and everything the loss changed.
Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut proposed that people cope with bereavement in two directions. Loss oriented coping faces the loss itself: the person, the absence, the memories. Restoration oriented coping deals with everything the loss changed: the house, the money, new roles, the paperwork, the new shape of the week.
Their key idea is that people oscillate between the two. Moving back and forth, and taking time away from both, is part of how coping works. It is not inconsistency.
Why it matters
It makes the practical work legitimate. A man absorbed in sorting out the estate, the accounts, and the car is not dodging anything. In this model he is doing half of the work, and the half that has deadlines.
Sorting out the paperwork is not avoiding it. It is one of the two things coping is made of.
This framework is the reason this practice publishes sheets at all. The first ninety days sheet is restoration oriented coping, written down in the order it has to happen.
What it is not
It does not say that practical work is all anyone needs, or that time spent on the loss itself is optional. The point is movement between the two. It is a model of how coping tends to work across many people, not a measure of whether one person is doing it correctly.