Dear Reader,

In an effort to better serve clients, colleagues, and the general public, the Center for Grief Recovery (the Center) is providing this free website-based bibliographic resource to broaden and deepen your knowledge and access to grief recovery related materials. Our aim is to support, encourage, offer hope and guidance to anyone, free of charge, wrestling with the meaning of their lives and the lives of loved ones in the wake of loss.

Materials included have been…

At the Center for Grief Recovery, we often find that our services are needed in response to a sudden loss in the workplace. The following outline has been used to help groups cope with such situations. The ideas in it, however, are applicable to many different kinds of loss experiences.

STOP THE ACTION

The first step in dealing with a death in an institution or workplace is to stop the normal activities and reschedule so that employees can come together to share their thoughts…

Grief comes in many different forms and in response to many kinds of losses. Sometimes an existential crisis occurs in the context of loss and grief. In addition to returning to their pre-loss functioning and what has been good and satisfying in the past, many clients find that grief counseling helps them reflect on areas of the self that may need fleshing out and development. For some individuals, loss can become a call for fuller development of their humanness. Since life truly is not the…

In American society we suffer from long-standing patterns of anxiety and denial about death.  Perhaps as a result, in our grief and mourning processes, we’ve learned to cope with our powerful reactions with self-control and “strength.”  It seems we are socially conditioned to be stoic, to “move on,”  “get back to work,” “be strong.”  These habits severely limit our freedom to grieve naturally and openly for any loved one we’ve lost.…

Last Saturday, The Center for Grief Recovery hosted its first-ever fundraiser walk to celebrate 25 years of service to the bereavement community.  The day was hot, but there was a cool breeze off lake Michigan and the trees offered nice shade. 

A group of 60+ people attended the walk, which began with welcoming remarks, a brief history of the Center and its mission, and an invocation by the Center's KC Conway, LCSW. 

Before the walk commenced, participants…

At the Center for Grief Recovery, we work primarily with individuals.  But individuals make up groups and groups make up communities.  These days we have both physical and virtual communities.  As the world around us continues to show signs of chaos, it seems increasingly important for places of coherence to come into being.  Place of coherence establish a sense of order, purpose, reliability, and predictability.  Perhaps we can think of community as a potential place of coherence.  In…

We are born knowing how to grieve.  As children, we cry naturally to feel better, to let go of our pain, to release the burdens of pent-up emotions.  It helped us lessen the weight from our shoulders.  Positive expressions of grief are helpful to us.  It is the lack of such expression that leads to chronic tension and dissatisfaction in life and even aggression and violence.

But there are actions we can take as a community to promote the healthy and safe expression of intense…

Many people wonder about grief counseling.  What is it?  Why should I do it?  It's hard enough to go through this with friends and family.  What's meeting with a professional going to do for me?

 

We know that the searing pain of losing a loved one can be endured with the right kinds of support.  For example, studies show that…