How We Grieve

Past President of the Association for Death Education and Counseling; currently an independent applied philosopher, writer, and speaker

Introduction to the Second Edition ; Chapter 1 - Stories of Grieving: Listening and Responding ; *Martin and Louise ; *Jennifer ; Bill, Diane and Margaret ; Ed, Elise, and David ; Kathryn ; Colleen ; Stories Are the Heart of the Matter: The Point of Thinking about Grieving ; Why Do Persons Look to Books on Grieving? ; They Seek General Understanding ; They Seek Respect for Individuality ; They Seek Ways to Deal with Helplessness in Grieving ; They Seek Guidance for Caregivers ; Chapter 2 - Grieving Is Active: We Need Not Be Helpless ; *The Story of Martin and Louise ; *Jennifer's Story ; Bereavement Is Choiceless, but Grieving Is Not ; Grief Is an Emotion, Grieving a Coping Process ; Some Say We Grieve in Stages or Phases ; Some Describe Our Grieving in Medical Terms ; Is It Helpful to Talk of Stages, Phases and Medical Analogies? ; Some Say that as We Grieve We Address Tasks ; A Task-Based, Active View ; Some Choices We All Have as We Grieve ; Grieving Is Active: A Summary ; Chapter 3 - Respecting Individuals When They Grieve ; *The Story of Bill and Diane ; *Respecting Individual Flourishing ; Respecting Individual Vulnerabilities ; Acting Respectfully Once We Understand Individual ; Flourishing and Vulnerability ; What Our Self-Respect Requires ; Chapter 4 - Relearning the World: How We Grieve ; *The Story of Ed and Elise ; *How We Relearn Our Worlds ; The Worlds We Relearn ; We Relearn Our Physical Surroundings ; We Relearn Our Relationships with Fellow Survivors ; We Relearn Our Selves ; We Relearn Our Places in Space and Time ; The Power of the Relearning Idea ; Chapter 5 - Relearning Our Selves: Grief and Personal Integrity ; *David's Story ; *Margaret's Story ; How Are We to Understand Ourselves in Loss and Grief? ; An Image of How We Become the Selves We Are ; Our Selves in Loss and Grief: Elaborating the Image ; As We Cope, We Engage with and Move beyond Suffering ; We Struggle to Put Our Shattered Lives Back Together ; We Seek New Ways to Complete Our Life Stories ; We Become Whole Again as Parts of Larger Wholes ; Together We Reshape Our Families and Communities ; Advantages of This Idea of Relearning Our Selves ; Chapter 6 - Relearning Our Relationships with the Deceased: Grief, Love and Separation ; *Kathryn's Story ; *Colleen's Story ; What We Lose, and What We Do Not Lose, When Someone Dies ; Let Go We Must, but Not Entirely ; We Continue to Love and Cherish the Stories of Lives Now Ended ; We Still Care About What Those Who Died Cared About. ; Advantages of This Idea of Relearning Our Relationships with the Deceased ; Index