Life after Loss: A Practical Guide to Renewing Your Life after Experiencing Major Loss

by Bob Deits

Overview

The grief and recovery classic fully revised and updated

Loss is overwhelming. After a loved one's death, a divorce, an injury or disease, or another major life change, recovery often seems daunting, if not impossible. Life after Loss is the go-to resource for anyone who has suffered a major loss. With great compassion and insight, Bob Deits provides essential wisdom and practical exercises for navigating the uncertain terrain of grief and recovery. Now in its sixth edition, this guide is fully updated with new advice on catastrophic losses, guidance on using technology to foster connections and maintain support networks, and reflections from Deits' ongoing counseling and his firsthand experiences. After a destabilizing change, Life after Loss helps you to find positive ways to put together a life that is necessarily different—but equally meaningful.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738219615
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	05/02/2017
Edition description:	6th Revised ed.
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	36,160
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Bob Deits, B.A. in Psychology and M.Th. in Pastoral Psychology, has been involved in pastoral counseling for nearly three decades, has conducted grief support groups since 1982, and lectures extensively. He lives in Mesa, Arizona.

Website: lifeafterlossonline.com

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

1 Loss and the Mourning After: A Universal Human Experience 1

2 First Responses to a Major Loss: When Your Worst Fears Become Real 13

3 Sudden Loss or Prolonged Loss: There Is No Easy Way 35

4 Recovering Your Balance: Creating a New Normal Experience 51

5 Perception: The Key to Healing 63

6 Steps to Recovery: A Common Path to Wholeness 77

7 The Inward Search: Grief Is a Personal Experience 93

8 Four Key Facts about Grief: Building a Foundation for Recovery 101

9 Start Now!: Today Is a Better Day to Begin than Tomorrow 117

10 Grief and Growth: Growing through Loss 129

11 A Test of Endurance: Life after Loss Takes Determination and Time 139

12 Beliefs that Help or Hurt: The Use and Abuse of Religion 147

13 Quiet Losses: Private Struggles Grieved in Silence 167

14 Children and Grief: it's a Big Hurt for Little People, Too 183

15 Losses in Later Life: Tarnish on the Golden Years 195

16 Making New Discoveries: Beginning with Loss-Ending with Life 205

17 Significant Points along the Way: Mileposts on the Road to Recovery 215

18 Choosing to Live Again: Ways to Take Charge of Your Own Grief 225

19 Opening New Doors: Decisions that Make a Difference 243

20 Your Own Best Friend: Completing the Journey 263

21 Preparing for Loss: A New Dimension in Wholeness 277

Appendix A Words that Describe Feelings 285

Appendix B Forming a Support Group 289

Notes 303

Acknowledgments 305

Index 307

Editorial Reviews

One of the classics in the field of crisis intervention, with wise, reassuring, and understanding emotional guidance and practical suggestions for strength and support.
—Rabbi Earl Grollman. D.D., author of Living when a Loved One Has Died

[A] roadmap for those in grief.
—Lawrence J. Lincoln, M.D., Staff, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Center

A practical guide for those who have difficulty in finding their way back after profound ordeals....Highly valuable and compassionate.
—Norman Cousins, author of Anatomy of an Illness

Old grief is as important a work as new grief, and it resurfaces with brand new lessons....Sooner or later, a difficult journey will come knocking (again), igniting the grief process. No one should be without this brilliant healing toolbox of a book.
—Maryann Makekau, founder of Hope Matters and coauthor of When Your Grandma Forgets

Loss is a universal experience and too often, because they don't know what to say, well-meaning doctors, friends, and family say, 'Don't worry, you'll get over it.' We never get over a major loss but we can find a way through it to enjoy a full and fulfilling life. In Life after Loss, Bob Deits provides compassionate and practical advice for grieving and rebuilding a meaningful life after loss. As a palliative care physician, I care for people dealing with serious illness and those facing the end of life and their loved ones—where grief and loss are a constant presence. I will recommend this wise and important book as essential reading to all my patients and their families.—Steven Z. Pantilat, MD, Kates-Burnard and Hellman Distinguished Professor of Palliative Care; Director, Palliative Care Program, UCSF; author of Life after the Diagnosis: Expert Advice on Living Well with Serious Illness for Patients and Caregivers

From the Publisher