Updated to commemorate its 20th anniversary, this classic resource further explores the effects of grief and sheds new light on how to begin to take effective actions to complete the grieving process and work towards recovery and happiness.
Incomplete recovery from grief can have a lifelong negative effect on the capacity for happiness. Drawing from their own histories as well as from others’, the authors illustrate how it is possible to recover from grief and regain energy and spontaneity.
Based on a proven program, The Grief Recovery Handbook offers grievers the specific actions needed to move beyond loss. New material in this edition includes guidance for dealing with:
· Loss of faith
· Loss of career and financial issues
· Loss of health
· Growing up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional home
The Grief Recovery Handbook is a groundbreaking, classic handbook that everyone should have in their library.
“This book is required for all my classes. The more I use this book, the more I believe that unresolved grief is the major underlying issue in most people’s lives. It is the only work of its kind that I know of that outlines the problem and provides the solution.”—Bernard McGrane, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, Chapman University
This book does not teach or guide us on how to release the loss of the person. There are many effective books for that kind of work. This book is for completing the grieving process.
Another example: I attempted to do these excercises for my relationship with my mother. However, as I went through the steps I began to get, more and more angry. And it was because I had decades of repressed rage around my childhood. So, I needed to grieve and release that anger before I could complete our relationship and conversations that need to be finished.
But, having said that, I attended a support group which incorporated reading this book and putting it into action and that has made me feel better than any other book I’ve read.
It’s not full of fluff, and yes, it’s a difficult topic (you already know that). But the authors handle it well and with an approach much more effective than platitudes like “it just takes time” etc. They have personal stories of loss, I felt like they were qualified to make suggestions and offer a path toward a less painful future.
I would recommend this to anyone suffering a loss of someone or something so special that they feel unable to move forward.
It helped me and I hope it helps you too.
As a clinical psychology doctoral candidate, I found myself relying in 'Kubler-Ross Grief Stages' and waiting for time to heal me. Waiting for time to pass and for me to go through the stages to finally recover from grief was impractical. I had no training in graduate school to deal with grief specifically, since all up to 2018 there was no disorder included in the manuals, that psychologists and psychiatrists use for diagnosing, of a grief experience that turns into clinically relevant.
I went to therapy but none addressed the underline cause of conplicated grief since it's fairly a new disorder. I was treated for anxiety or depression. Research has proven that the normal process of grieving could turn into a distinctive disorder which needs an specific treatment if there are obstacles obstructing the healing. Complicated grief share some symptoms with depression and post traumatic stress.
I came across this book and it worked for me. My sister was thrilled to see me move forward. Every family member was plainly frustrated and had given up 'trying to help me'. I hit bottom and this action plan was the key to help me regain my life.
I do not agree with the authors as to this being 'the solution', 'the way to healing' or recovering as they have copyrighted. I see it as one of the paths between many. This is not therapy. It's self help and in the same way I believe it has to be conceptualize to see if it is a good fit to the persons presenting problem. Or, if another approach is more suitable. At the least it could be seen as a trial and error effort. It might help you it may not. In my case it worked.
I have hope in the future, I'm no longer stuck in my grief, I can laugh again, I can reinvest in other people and have goals and dreams again. I now want to specialize in treating grief that turns into pathological!
I hope this book help you. If not, keep looking. God did not forsake me or abandoned me in my valley of death. He leaded me to what I needed in His sovereign time. I kept the faith.
We've been trained that "boys don't cry", "have a cookie and you'll feel better", "forget the past", in other words stuff the feelings that make other people uncomfortable. Or as a good friend of mine use to do, compartmentalize: put everything in boxes in your mind and put them on a shelf in the back so you don't have to deal with them and they don't have to bother anyone else.
Unfortunately, emotional pain can be like an infection in your body. It may be scabbed over, but it's going to keep festering until you do what is necessary to heal it. Some people respond to the built up, festering pain by actually becoming physically ill. Some people grab an uzi and head to the mall. Then some people become angry, bitter people who turn to alcohol and/or drugs to numb the lifetime of unresolved pain. Either way the outcome isn't good for that person or the people around him/her.
This book helps the reader to understand these concepts clearly and simply. Then it gives you tools to finally heal. If you have lost a loved one to death, rest assured that the goal is NOT for you to bury them again, by trying to make you let go of your relationship with that person. It IS about expressing the pain caused by the loss and letting go of only that pain so that you can remember your loved one with a smile instead of a knife in the heart.
After my husband passed away, I worked with a grief recovery coach who trained at the Grief Recovery Institute with the authors of this book and founders of the institute. I highly recommend working with a grief coach when going through this book. If you cannot afford one, then find someone that you can trust to objectively and compassionately hear you through this process, maybe from a support group, or your church. Aside from the benefits of my coach's training and personal experience, I found working with someone kept me from procrastinating and helped me to push through the pain.
Just remember, the only way out of the pain is through it.