Grief & Loss

Helen Brown wasn't a cat person, but her nine-year-old son Sam was. So when Sam heard a woman telling his mum that her cat had just had kittens, he pleaded to go and see them. Helen's heart melted as Sam held one of the kittens in his hands, with a look of total adoration. In a trice the deal was done - the kitten would be de... read more

Jennifer Worth's bestselling memoirs of her time as a midwife have inspired and moved readers of all ages. Now, in IN THE MIDST OF LIFE she documents her experiences as a nurse and ward sister, treating patients who were nearing the end of their lives. Interspersed with these stories from Jennifer's post-midwife career are th... read more

This book is a resource to assist people facing infertility in all its stages and forms to create ceremony and ritual that will help them find their own way to peace and acceptance. Personal stories and examples of ceremony are included, as it is often not easy to find this information elsewhere. It is a resource for infert... read more

Another invaluable resource from the author of Coming to Grief: a Survival Guide to Grief and Loss ($ 29.95). Grief counsellor Pam Heaney, a former funeral director, recognises that the major hurdle is not educating children about loss but equipping ourselves to do so. She gives clear, straightforward, practical advice for di... read more

Dr Yalom argues that once we confront our own mortality, we are inspired to rearrange our priorities, communicate more deeply with those we love, appreciate more keenly the beauty of life, and increase our willingness to take the risks necessary for personal fulfillment.

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago. Maybe, like Mitch,... read more

This book offers a new understanding of the grief process. Readers will learn about the spiral staircase, a metaphor used to describe the ebb and flow of emotional pain that typically follow loss. The book offers ways to cope with the events and situations that trigger personal grief by using mindfulness exercises and radical... read more

We're all dying. Sooner or later we're going to croak, kick the bucket, give up the ghost, cash in our chips, shuffle off, bow out or go to our happy hunting ground. It's the one thing we all have in common. Yet no one seems to want to talk about it. Well, the people at Pilotlight do.
This little book seeks to break... read more

Death is part of all our lives - the deaths of people we love, the experience of terminal illness, the grief of friends or family. Yet we tend to speak of it with difficulty. And we know little about death in other cultures - what rituals are sustaining, what might cause distress, or what is appropriate in medical procedure. ... read more

Grief and Bereavement in Contemporary Society is an authoritative guide to the study of and work with major themes in bereavement. Its chapters synthesize the best of research-based conceptualization and clinical wisdom across 30 of the most important topics in the field, including the implementation of specific models in cli... read more

The loss of a loved one can be devastating. Here Molly Fumia offers a helping hand through the process of grief and recovery. Her wisdom comes from personal experience, and her writing is at once universal and highly personal.

This book gives voice to an emerging consensus among bereavement scholars that our understanding of the grief process needs to be expanded. The dominant 20th century model holds that the function of grief and mourning is to cut bonds with the deceased, thereby freeing the survivor to reinvest in new relationships in the p... read more

Drawing upon extensive interviews and assessments of school-age children who have lost a parent to death, this book offers a portrait of the mourning process in children. The volume presents major findings from the Harvard Child Bereavement Study and places them in the context of previous research, shedding new light on b... read more

In his seminal concept of "disenfranchised grief" as empathetic failure, Doka (gerontology, College of New Rochelle, NY) goes beyond fruitless comparisons of loss. These 26 theoretical, empirical, clinical, and educational chapters by experts in this field discuss how many types of loss can be validated via grief therapy,... read more

This book offers a surprising new prescription for coping with depression and anxiety, as well as other painful emotional states: don't try to get rid of them.
In Healing Through The Dark Emotions, Miriam Greenspan shows us that there's something good in so-called 'bad' feelings, if we would only stop and listen to them... read more

Easeful Death sets out in straightforward terms the main arguments both for and against the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia. The legal choices confronting those caring for the terminally ill, and indeed those patients themselves who may be facing intolerable suffering towards the end of their lives, have been ... read more

Goodbye is a collection of beautiful images taken by photographer Melanie Mason. Matched with her favourite song lyrics, poetry and prose — the words and images offer comfort and insight during times of sadness and loss. Taken in her travels around the world, Melanie's photographs from her 'white album' are embued with a quie... read more

Worldwide, more than 50 million people die each year and it is estimated on the basis of the conditions leading to death that up to 60% of them could benefit from some form of palliative care. It is a public health challenge to ensure that these people can access good palliative or end-of-life care. Pursuing good population h... read more

In June 2011, Susan Spencer-Wendel learned she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) - Lou Gehrig's disease, an irreversible condition that systematically destroys the nerves that power the muscles. While Susan cannot stop the rapid decline of her body and her inevitable death, she refuses to give up on life. A woman of imm... read more

The Death of a Child is a collection of a dozen essays in which parents and siblings tell their own stories of losing a child, brother or sister, and of how they have coped with bereavement and grief. Their experiences range from the earliest losses - actress and author Carol Drinkwater's miscarriages, Irish writer Catherine ... read more