Grief Psychology

Although a mother's mortality is inevitable, no book has discussed the profound lasting and far reaching effects of this loss until Motherless Daughters. More than 20 years later, it is still the go-to book that women of all ages look to for comfort, help, and understanding when their mother dies. Building on interviews with hundreds of mother-loss survivors, Edelman's personal story of losing her mother, and recent research in grief and psychology, Motherless Daughters reveals the shared experiences and core identity issues of motherless women.

We are all touched at some point by the dark emotions of grief, fear, or despair. In an age of global threat, these emotions have become widespread and overwhelming. While conventional wisdom warns us of the harmful effects of "negative" emotions, this revolutionary book offers a more hopeful view: there is a redemptive power in our worst feelings. Seasoned psychotherapist Miriam Greenspan argues that it's the avoidance and denial of the dark emotions that results in the escalating psychological disorders of our time.

Megan Devine offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we help others who have endured tragedy. Having experienced grief from both sides - as both a therapist and as a woman who witnessed the accidental drowning of her beloved partner - Megan writes with deep insight about the unspoken truths of loss, love, and healing.

Whenever we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. No goal is more elusive. In How to Be a Stoic, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci offers Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that inspired the great emperor Marcus Aurelius, as the best way to attain it. Stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy that teaches us to act depending on what is within our control and separate things worth getting upset about from those that are not.

Grieving is a highly personal experience and reactions differ from person to person. Feelings of loss are arguably the most unique, confusing feelings with which to cope. Therapist and grief expert, Stephanie Jose, understands this. She created Progressing Through Grief as an interactive resource to gently meet you wherever you are today, as you move through your grief and toward healing.

At 74, Yalom has penned a book that is the climax of his lifework, focusing on the universal human issues of mortality and death. He suggests that what he calls the "awakening experience" can help us acknowledge, accept, and utilize our fear of death in a very positive manner. Such an awakening experience can be as simple as a dream, or quick as a sudden insight. It is often a loss, a trauma, or just plain aging that can prompt an awakening experience that is a turning point for a more meaningful life.

Death is the last taboo in our society, and grief is still profoundly misunderstood. So many of us feel awkward and uncertain around death and shy away from talking honestly with family and friends. Grief Works is a compassionate guide that will inform and engage anyone who is grieving, from the expected death of a parent to the sudden unexpected death of a small child, and provide clear advice for those seeking to comfort the bereaved.

With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an un­tapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she em­ploys the same mix of research, storytelling, and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, con­nection, and transcendence.

Contrary to what many people believe, we can recover from emotional trauma relatively quickly and completely on our own. Keep Pain in the Past explains a process that allows you to do most, if not all, of the recovery on your own. It will teach you the critical skill of treating psychological wounds and help you identify and face this pain and find closure on your own. Use Dr. Chris Cortman's easy-to-master method to remember, feel, express, release, and reframe the trauma that has been haunting you for years.

As a psychologist and child psychoanalyst, Dr. Masur has helped many children recognize and express their feelings after loss. In How Children Grieve, Masur shares her expertise with caregivers of all kinds, giving them the tools they need to help a child or teenager to mourn, to move forward, and to make meaning of terrible loss.

The conventional view of grieving - encapsulated by the famous five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance - is defined by a mourning process that we can only hope to accept and endure. In The Other Side of Sadness, psychologist and emotions expert George Bonanno argues otherwise. Our inborn emotions - anger and denial, but also relief and joy - help us deal effectively with loss. To expect or require only grief-stricken behavior from the bereaved does them harm.

The death of someone we hold dear may be inevitable; being paralyzed by our grief is not. A growing body of research has revealed our capacity for resilient grieving, our innate ability to respond to traumatic loss by finding ways to grow - by becoming more engaged with our lives, and discovering new, profound meaning.

Suicide rates among Army soldiers increased 80 percent between 2004 and 2008, according to a recent report published in Injury Prevention. In the last several years, the number of soldiers returning from the Middle East with mental and physical wounds has continued to climb. According to Dr. Simon Rego, a supervising psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center, "Unlike any other time in history, U.S. military suicide rates now appear to have surpassed those among comparable civilian populations. It is therefore critical that we address this emerging public-health problem."

Following deaths, divorces, or the confusion of major relocation, many adults tell their children “don’t feel bad”. In fact, say the authors of the highly praised The Grief Recovery Handbook, feeling bad or sad is precisely the appropriate emotion attached to sad events. Encouraging a child to bypass grief without completion can cause unseen long-term damage.

As an analyst working with the dying, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés has developed seminal methods to help ease the fear that can accompany the dying process. In The Radiant Coat, this bestselling author shares myths and stories first told at the bedsides of the dying to comfort them and their loved ones. For other cultures, Dr. Estés teaches, death holds no terror. It is in fact characterized as an ally, a wise and caring figure, leading departed souls through the starry night into the next day.

In this profound and moving book, oncology nurse Janie Brown recounts 20 conversations she has had with the dying, including people close to her. Each conversation uncovers a different perspective on, and experience of death, while at the same time exploring its universalities. Offering extremely sensitive and wise insight into our final moments, Brown shows practical ways to facilitate the shift from feeling helpless about death to feeling hopeful; from fear to acceptance; from feeling disconnected and alone, to becoming part of the wider, collective story of our mortality.

In The Wheel of Life, when Kübler-Ross was 71 years old and facing her own death, this world-renowned healer told the story of her extraordinary life. Having taught the world how to die well, she offered a lesson on how to live well. The Wheel of Life is an adventure of the heart - powerful, controversial, inspirational - a fitting legacy of a powerful life.

More than 100 years ago, the American philosopher William James wrote that the knowledge that we must die is "the worm at the core" of the human condition - a universally shared fear that informs all our thoughts and actions, from the great art we create to the devastating wars we wage.

In the spring of 2006, Don Gillmor traveled to Whitehorse to reconstruct the last days of his brother, David, whose truck and cowboy hat were found at the edge of the Yukon River just outside of town the previous December. David's family, his second wife, and his friends had different theories about his disappearance. Some thought David had run away; some thought he'd met with foul play; but most believed that David, a talented musician who at the age of 48 was about to give up the night life for a day job, had intentionally walked into the water.

We are often urged to rely only on ourselves for strength, mental fortitude, and positivity. But with her distinctive “skill, wit, and sharp insight” (Laura Bates, author of Girl Up), Soraya Chemaly challenges us to adapt our thinking about how we survive in a world of sustained, overlapping crises. It is interdependence and nurturing relationships that truly sustain us, she argues. Based on comprehensive research and eye-opening examples from real-life, The Resilience Myth offers alternative visions of relational hardiness by emphasizing care for others and our environments above all.