Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner » (4th Edition)

J. William Worden, PhD, ABPP, is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and holds academic appointments at the Harvard Medical School and at the Rosemead Graduate School of Psychology in California. He is also Co-Principal Investigator of the Harvard Child Bereavement Study, based at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Recipient of 5 major NIH grants, his research and clinical work over 40 years has centered on issues of life-threatening illness and life-threatening behavior.

His professional interests led him to become a founding member of the Association of Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) and the International Work Group on Death, Dying, and Bereavement (IWG). A pioneer in the hospice movement in the United States, Dr. Worden was on the advisory board for the first hospice in the US in Branford, CT as well as the Hospice of Pasadena, CA. His book Grief Counseling & Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner, now in its fourth edition, has been translated into 12 foreign languages and is widely used around the world as the standard reference on the subject. Dr. Worden's clinical practice is in Laguna Niguel, California.

"In the fields of death education, research and counseling/psychology, surely Bill Worden is a giant....ALL of us, personally and professionally, are indebted to J. William Worden. From his work we may be just a bit wiser, a bit healthier, a bit more competent, and a lot more in touch with meaning (our own and those of others) for the sake of all who mourn."

--Illness, Crisis, & Loss

Recipient of The International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement Herman Feifel Award.

Dr. Worden presents the highly anticipated fourth edition to Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy, the gold standard of grief therapy handbooks. The previous editions, translated into 12 languages, received worldwide acclaim for their sensitive, insightful, and practical approach to grief counseling. In this updated and revised fourth edition, Dr. Worden presents his most recent thinking on bereavement drawn from extensive research, clinical work, and the best of the new literature.

Key Features:

• The task model has been modified to account for new thinking and research findings in the field, including meaning making, resilience, and continuing bonds
  
• A new chapter on the Mediators of Mourning helps clinicians to understand what accounts for individual differences in adapting to the death of a loved one
  
• Looks at recent controversies in the field including the best way to understand complicated bereavement and the efficacy of grief counseling and therapy
  
• Presents the vital distinction between grief and trauma, and highlights different intervention approaches for each

Comprehensive and highly organized, this text is useful to therapists just beginning to work in the field as well as seasoned practitioners.

Contemporary Psychology

Worden ... has again provided mental health professionals with a superb guide describing specific principles and procedures that may be helpful in working with bereaved clients undergoing normal or abnormal grief reactions ... an extremely practical book and an invaluable resource.

Introduction 1

1 Attachment, Loss, and the Experience of Grief 13

2 Understanding the Mourning Process 37

3 The Mourning Process: Mediators of Mourning 57

4 Grief Counseling: Facilitating Uncomplicated Grief 83

5 Abnormal Grief Reactions: Complicated Mourning 127

6 Grief Therapy: Resolving Complicated Mourning 153

7 Grieving Special Types of Losses 179

8 Grief and Family Systems 217

9 The Counselor's Own Grief 251

10 Training for Grief Counseling 261

Appendix 283

Bibliography 285

Index 305