Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner, Fourth Edition

329 Pages·2009·1.48 MB·English

by  J. William Worden

PRAISE FOR GRIEF COUNSELING AND GRIEF THERAPY
“The fourth edition of this book retains all the theoretical strengths and clinical
wisdom of past editions, while incorporating emerging theories and cutting-
edge research. It is required reading for any counselor, educator, or researcher
who wishes to understand grief.”
—Kenneth J. Doka, PhD, Professor, The Graduate School, The College of
New Rochelle; Senior Consultant, The Hospice Foundation of America
“[If] you knew Worden’s work and his writings previously, you’ll fi nd an en-
hanced book with a much broader and challenging perspective than his previ-
ous editions. If you are not familiar with Bill Worden, then it is time to begin.”
—Ben Wolfe, MEd, LICSW, Fellow in Thanatology, Program Manager/Grief
Counselor, St. Mary’s Medical Center’s Grief Support Center, Duluth, MN;
Past President, Association for Death Education and Counseling
“This book challenges how we conceptualize the experience of grief and the
process of mourning, it informs how we assess those experiencing problems in
adjusting to loss, and it guides our treatment approaches. I can’t think of a thing
Worden has missed.”
—Stephen Fleming, PhD, Department of Psychology, Faculty
of Health, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
“Simply stated, you will not fi nd a better book to guide you in assisting people
struggling with the myriad of issues following a death.”
—Donna L. Schuurman, EdD, CT, Executive Director,
The Dougy Center for Grieving Children & Families
Praise for Earlier Editions
“This book is the ‘Bible’ for those involved in the fi eld of bereavement work. . . . It
is a straightforward, tightly focused, practical, soundly reasoned, compact work-
ing text.”
—William M. Lamers,Jr., MD, The Lamers Medical Group
“[Worden] has again provided mental health professionals with a superb guide
describing specifi c . . . procedures that may be helpful in working with bereaved
clients undergoing normal or abnormal grief reactions . . . [An] extremely prac-
tical book and an invaluable resource.”
—Contemporary Psychology,now known asPsyCritiques
J. William Worden, PhD, ABPP, is a fellow of the American Psycholog-
ical Association and holds academic appointments at the Harvard
Medical School and at the Rosemead Graduate School of Psychol-
ogy in C alifornia. He is also co-principal investigator of the Harvard
Child Bereavement Study, based at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Recipient of fi ve major NIH grants, his research and clinical work
over 40 years have 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 and the Inter-
national Work Group on Death, Dying, and Bereavement. A pioneer
in the hospice movement in the United States, Dr. Worden was on the
advisory board for the fi rst hospice in the United States in Branford,
Connecticut, as well as the Hospice of Pasadena, California. He has
been a consultant to various research projects across the United States,
including “Women and HIV” for Columbia University, “Assisted
S uicide and End-of-Life Decisions” for the American Psychological
Association, and “Fathers’ Experience With Pediatric End of Life
Care” for the University of California, San Francisco. He served for
7 years on the national board of the American Cancer Society and is
active in the society at the state and local levels.
Dr. Worden has lectured and written on topics related to terminal
illness, cancer care, and bereavement. He is the author of Personal
Death Awareness and C hildren & Grief: When a Parent Dies, and is
coauthor of Helping Cancer Patients Cope. Grief Counseling & Grief
Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner has been
translated into 11 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.
Grief Counseling and
Grief Therapy
A Handbook for the Mental
Health Practitioner
FOURTH EDITION
J. William Worden, PhD, ABPP
New York
Copyright © 2009 Springer Publishing Company, LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trans-
mitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior permission of Springer Publishing Company, LLC.
Springer Publishing Company, LLC
11 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
www.springerpub.com
Acquisitions Editor: Sheri W. Sussman
Production Editor: Julia Rosen
Cover design: Mimi Flow
Composition: Apex CoVantage
Book cover photo: Celestino Garcia
08 09 10 11 12/ 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Worden, J. William (James William)
Grief counseling and grief therapy : a handbook for the mental health practitioner /
J. William Worden. — 4th ed.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8261-0120-4 (alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8261-2456-2 (int’1 ed.)
1. Grief therapy. 2. Mental health counseling. I. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Counseling—methods. 2. Grief. 3. Psychotherapy—methods.
WM 55 W924g 2008]
RC455.4.L67W67 2008
616.89'14—dc22 2008016551
Printed in the United States of America by Bang Printing.
To my children, Michael and Karin
And my grandchildren, Abigail Ann and Andrew William
May these thoughts be helpful to you one day.
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Grieving allows us to heal, to remember with love rather than pain.
It is a sorting process.
One by one you let go of things that are gone
and you mourn for them.
One by one you take hold of the things that have become a part of
who you are and build again.
—Rachael Naomi Remen
Happiness has gone out of our lives;
Grief has taken the place of our dances.
—Lamentations 5
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Contents
Preface xiii
Introduction 1
What Is the Nature of Complicated Bereavement? 1
Disenfranchised Grief 2
Continuing Bonds 3
Meaning Making 4
Resilience 5
Trauma and Grief 6
1 Attachment, Loss, and the Experience of Grief 13
Attachment Theory 13
Is Grief a Disease? 16
Normal Grief 17
Grief and Depression 31
2 Understanding the Mourning Process 37
Tasks of Mourning 39
Dual-Process Model of Grieving 53
3 The Mourning Process: Mediators of Mourning 57
Mediator 1: Who the Person Who Died Was 57
Mediator 2: The Nature of the Attachment 58
Mediator 3: How the Person Died 59
Mediator 4: Historical Antecedents 63
Mediator 5: Personality Variables 64
Mediator 6: Social Variables 73
Mediator 7: Concurrent Stresses 75
Caution 75
When Is Mourning Finished? 76
ix