The Five Ways We Grieve: Finding Your Personal Path to Healing After the Loss of a Loved One

Susan Berger offers practical advice for healing from a major loss in this presentation of five basic styles of grieving. Going beyond Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' system describing the stages of grief, Berger presents a new model: types of grievers. These five types describe how people fall into behaviour patterns in their response to a loss-and how by identifying their patterns, they can find their way to healing and self-transformation. The five types are the Nomad, the Memorialist, the Normalizer, the Activist, and the Seeker. Using research from her work with the bereaved for the past twenty-five years, Berger examines how a person's worldview is changed after a major loss: their sense of mortality, their values and priorities, and how they fit into society. She has found that adults who lost a family member in childhood often experience long-term obstacles as a result. By identifying their grieving type, readers whose lives are shaped by loss find ways of understanding the impact of the loss and living more fully. Also of interest to professionals working with bereaved clients, the five types provide a useful model for evaluating clients' perspectives on their own experiences.

About the Author :
Susan A. Berger, EdD, LICSW, counsels people who are confronting significant loss and other life changes. She also trains professionals in using her unique approach to helping the bereaved. She has twenty-five years' experience in the health and mental health fields as a researcher, practitioner, administrator, and consultant in both Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. She lectures widely in professional healthcare, business, government, and university settings. She has held faculty appointments at three colleges, teaching courses in human behavior and psychology. She has also served as a hospice volunteer. Dr. Berger is herself a survivor of early parental loss.

Review :
"Author Susan A. Berger offers a fascinating new view of what happens to people who lose loved ones. The Five Ways We Grieve helps us to discover who we have become in order to give our lives meaning and purpose."--Patriot Ledger "Offers a fresh new approach to understanding and coping with the major losses every human being experiences. Dr. Susan A. Berger gives bereaved people a useful tool for interpreting their responses to a loss and creating a new normal for their lives."--Bob Deits, author of Life after Loss "A treasure trove of penetrating insights. Dr. Susan A. Berger's lucid and thoughtfully researched writing contains personal experiences, clinical examples, and penetrating questions to ponder. Although she takes us deeply into the realm of human torment, the essential message is one of hope as she assists us in transforming tragedy into growth. Dr. Berger will bring needed solace to many grieving hearts."--Rabbi Earl A. Grollman, DHL, DD, author of Living When a Loved One Has Died "This book offers hope with a plan--in the form of new ways to recognize, define, and focus on our changed identity and worldview after loss. As a child therapist specializing in illness and loss, I found this book immediately helpful."--Sallie A. Sanborn, MS, child therapist and contributor to The Goldfish Went on Vacation “Author Susan A. Berger offers a fascinating new view of what happens to people who lose loved ones.  "The Five Ways We Grieve" helps us to discover who we have become in order to give our lives meaning and purpose.”—"Patriot Ledger" “Offers a fresh new approach to understanding and coping with the major losses every human being experiences.  Dr. Susan A. Berger gives bereaved people a useful tool for interpreting their responses to a loss and creating a new normal for their lives.”—Bob Deits, author of "Life after Loss" “A treasure trove of penetrating insights. Dr. Susan A. Berger’s lucid and thoughtfully researched writing contains personal experiences, clinical examples, and penetrating questions to ponder. Although she takes us deeply into the realm of human torment, the essential message is one of hope as she assists us in transforming tragedy into growth. Dr. Berger will bring needed solace to many grieving hearts