Understanding Loss and Grief

A Guide Through Life Changing Events

By (author) Nanette Burton Mongelluzzo

Publication date:

30 October 2013

Length of book:

240 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442222731

Loss and grief are universal experiences and much has been written about both. Understanding Loss and Grief: A Guide Through Life Changing Events is a comprehensive self-help book about the various types of loss we may experience over a lifetime, and the attendant grief we feel, in all its variations, related to those losses. Nanette Burton Mongelluzzo considers the variety of ways we experience loss and grief – whether through the actual death of a loved one, including a beloved pet, or losses experienced through divorce, medical problems, natural disasters (material items) – abd examines what these experiences do to us psychologically, biologically, and emotionally. She offers understanding and the we need tools for moving through the various experiences, both big and small.

Everyone is touched by loss. It begins early in our lives and continues through its various ages and stages. Through the use of real-life vignettes, and fascinating facts on loss and grief within the American cultural landscape, the author sheds light on the ways we grieve and how we can move through it and move on. She not only explains the comprehensive array of losses that can occur in a lifetime, but also helps readers garner support for different types of loss, whether it be the loss of a breast through cancer; the loss experienced through stillbirth; or the loss of a child, spouse, or entire community. She offers support, optimism, and encouragement to readers, helping them to own personal experiences, even those that involve loss and grief.

Introduction
1: Defining Loss, Grief, And Bereavement
2: Loss as A Lifelong Process Life Events and The Loss Continuum
3: An Overview of Some Personal Losses
4: As Loss Relates to The Action of Another
5: The Inevitable Types of Loss
6: The Family Constellation of Loss Scenarios
7: Special Considerations About Loss Suicide
8: Extended Loss
9: Global, Environmental, and Geographical Loss
10: The Physiology of Loss and Grief
11: Grieving Styles
12: Across the Globe—Multicultural Understanding of Grief
13: Complicated Grief and Mourning
14: Traumatic Grief and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
15: Coping Strategies for Loss and Grief
16: Therapy, Counseling, Psychiatry, and Medication
17: Alternative Therapies
18: Unhealthy Coping and The Dangers of Self-Medicating
19: Change and What To Expect Over The Long Term
Bibliography

[Understanding Loss and Grief] reviews many different expressions of loss, not just death and bereavement, and offers helpful coping strategies and self-help tools. . . .Mongeluzzo empowers her readers to approach losses—large and small—with gentleness, acceptance, and even optimism. She also touches on losses that reach beyond the individual and family to include community and world -wide issues. Although not every aspect of the book will be relevant to everyones experience, every reader is sure to walk away with a deeper understanding of the subject and with insights to apply to his or her life. . . .Understanding Loss and Grief is a thoughtful and reassuring review of a subject that is too often misunderstood and mystifying and, in some cases, even taboo.