Contents

Contents

Part One: Seeing the Problem

How to Use The Grief Recovery Handbook

1. Grief: A Neglected and Misunderstood Process

Grief and Recovery

Staying Open to Grief

Grief Recovery: How Does It Work?

An Incomplete Past May Doom the Future

2. Compounding the Problem

Confusion About Stages

What About Anger?

Common Responses

Getting Over or Getting Complete

When Is It Time to Begin to Recover?

Suicide, Murder, AIDS, and Other Tragic Circumstances

The “G” Word

Survivor: Another Inaccurate Word

There Is Nothing Wrong with You

3. We Are Ill Prepared to Deal with Loss

We’re Taught How to Acquire Things, Not What to Do When We Lose Them

We’re Taught Myths About Dealing with Grief

Participating in Your Own Recovery

Practice Makes Habits

4. Others Are Ill Prepared to Help Us Deal with Loss

They Don’t Know What to Say

They’re Afraid of Our Feelings

They Try to Change the Subject

They Intellectualize

They Don’t Hear Us

They Don’t Want to Talk About Death

Professional Distortions

They Want Us to Keep Our Faith

5. Academy Award Recovery

Enshrine or Bedevil?

We Want the Approval of Others

“I’m Fine” Is Often a Lie

We Begin to Experience a Massive Loss of Energy

We Experience a Loss of Aliveness

Part Two: Preparing for Change: Starting to Recover

6. Your First Choice: Choosing to Recover

Who Is Responsible?

Your Second Choice: Partnership or Working Alone

Finding a Partner

7. Setting the Guidelines

Initial Partners Meeting

Making Commitments

First Homework Assignment

Review Thoughts and Reminders

Second Partners Meeting

8. Identifying Short-Term Energy Relievers

Short-Term Relief Doesn’t Work

Identifying Your Short-Term Energy-Relieving Behaviors

Second Homework Assignment

Third Partners Meeting

9. The Loss History Graph

Compare and Minimize

Loss History Graph Examples

What Goes on the Loss History Graph

Third Homework Assignment: Preparing Your Loss History Graph

Time and Intensity

Learning from Your Loss History Graph

Fourth Partners Meeting

Part Three: Finding the Solution

10. What Is Incompleteness?

How to Identify What Is Incomplete

Choosing a Loss to Complete

More Help Choosing the First Loss to Work On and Questions about Other Losses

11. Introducing the Relationship Graph

The Relationship Graph Is Different from the Loss History Graph

Completing Is Not Forgetting

Accurate Memory Pictures: Your Part

Truth Is the Key to Recovery

Even Long Illnesses End in Unfinished Business

Hopes, Dreams, and Expectations

The Relationship Graph

Fourth Homework Assignment: Making Your Relationship Graph

Dawn of Memory—the Death of an Infant

Fifth Partners Meeting

12. Almost Home: Converting the Relationship Graph into Recovery Components

Victims Have Difficulty with Apologies

Significant Emotional Statements

Fifth Homework Assignment: Putting It All Together

Sixth Partners Meeting

Moving from Discovery to Completion

Final Homework Assignment: The Grief Recovery Completion Letter^©

Final Partners Meeting: Reading Your Letter

What Does Completion Mean?

Stuck on a Painful Image

What About New Discoveries? Cole’s Window Story

More Help with Relationship Graphs and Completion Letters

13. What Now?

Part Four: More on Choices and Other Losses

14. More on Choices—Which Loss to Work on First

Start with Relationships You Remember

Other First Choice Concerns: Hidden or Disguised Choices

15. Guidelines for Working on Specific Losses

Death or Absence of Parent from an Early Age

Infant Loss and Infertility

Alzheimer’s—Dementia

Growing Up in an Alcoholic or Otherwise Dysfunctional Home

Unique Loss Graphing Situations: Faith, Career, Health, Moving

Miscellaneous Tips

The Grief Recovery Institute: Services and Programs

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Books by John W. James

About the Publisher