Book: Grief counselling and grief therapy (Worden 3e 2003)

Grief counselling and grief therapy a handbook for the mental health practitioner
Worden, W. J. (2005). Grief counselling and grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner. London : Routledge
ISBN 9781583919415

I first read my copy of this book between 2009-2011. I picked it up just a month ago and after I finished it I came to the same conclusion I had before: this is a fantastic text that should be widely read.
I've faced the loss of close and extended family; sometimes it hits you hard emotionally, sometimes you get on with your life and deal with the loss a little at a time. Dealing with the emotional upheaval of having to make financial, medical and lifestyle decisions for an ageing relative can also be very hard. But having read, and re-read, this very readable book makes it a little easier.
One of Bill Worden's most important concepts is working through mourning with four tasks of grief. Grief never quite leaves us, but it can be integrated into our lives instead of emotionally consuming us. In my copy of this third edition (3e 2003) from page 25 forward (p25ff) Worden outlines why mourning is a process, not discreet stages, and how four completed tasks indicate how we have coped with loss. In this section Worden makes reference to his colleague Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and her often cited work On death and dying. The follow-up work by Kübler-Ross, Questions and answers on death and dying, supports Worden's theory that mourning and grief experienced by those not facing imminent death is not experienced in discrete stages.
Where all this helps my professional life in communications is when I have to deal with groups who are undergoing some sort of workplace or environmental change. For some individuals in any group, the process of change is just another life event; for others, change may bring about undesired emotional upheaval and they need to work through their emotions to get through the process of change.
I had read this book before I read Albert Roberts' Crisis intervention handbook: Assessment, treatment, and research and some of the books on practical and clinical psychiatry, psychology, and counselling.
Plus, it really helped me understand dealing with personal loss.
Highly recommended. And if you have time there are a series of short video interviews with Bill Worden on public social media. They are worth a look.

Kübler-Ross, E. (2001). On death and dying. London: Routledge.
Kübler-Ross, E. (1974). Questions and answers on death and dying. New York: Macmillan.

Rando, T. A. (1993). Treatment of complicated mourning. Champaign, Ill: Research Press.
Roberts, A. R. (2005). Crisis intervention handbook: Assessment, treatment, and research. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rachels, J., & Rachels, S. (2009). The elements of moral philosophy (Fifth ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill

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