Bereaved parents' experiences of anger as a part of their grieving process: a qualitative analysis

Background: Grief following the loss of a child is one of the most profound stressors a person can endure. Emotions such as sadness, yearning and despair are commonly reported in clinical and research literature, while anger, which is also a common response to grief, especially when the loss is violent or traumatic, is more often overlooked.Objective: To explore in depth how bereaved parents following the 2011 Utøya terror attack have experienced anger as a part of their grieving process.Method: Bereaved parents (n = 22) were interviewed nine years post loss. The interview guide had questions about their experiences with grief and trauma, the impact of other life events and their experience of professional help and treatment. Interviews were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.Results: Drawing on in-depth interviews, we found three themes: (1) Anger has not been part of my grieving process, (2) Anger has been a natural part of my grieving process and (3) Anger has been a complicated part of my grieving process.Conclusion: This study demonstrates the multifaceted nature of anger in bereavement following the Utøya terror attack. Anger was experienced in different ways: absent, natural, or complicating, highlighting its complexity as a grief response. Particularly, self-directed anger emerged as a marker of psychological distress, consistent with prior research on complicated grief. Although the interview data did not explicitly address the influence of cultural and societal norms, the broader collective response to the attack may have shaped emotional expression among the bereaved. The absence of anger in some participants, coupled with their concern about this absence, suggests an internalisation of normative grief expectations. This underscores the need for future research to examine how collective identity and cultural framing influence emotional regulation in traumatic bereavement.