Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy

Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner, 4th ed.

The process of adapting to loss

—Reviewed by Larry Yeagley, now retired. He has served as pastor and chaplain. He now lives in Gentry, Arkansas, United States.

Twenty-five years ago I attended a weekend intensive conducted by William Worden. At that time he did not believe it wise to establish a new profession called grief counseling. In this fourth edition, he is of the same opinion. He advocates greater thought, sensitivity, and activity in helping grieving people on the part of existing professional groups. This would include clergy, funeral directors, family therapists, nurses, social workers, and physicians.

Worden sees the stage approach to grieving as problematic in that grieving people do not pass through stages in seriatim. The novice helper may take stages too literally. He maintains that the process of adapting to loss involves four tasks: (1) accepting the reality of the loss, (2) processing the pain of grief, (3) adjusting to a world without the deceased, and (4) finding an enduring connection with the deceased in the midst of embarking on a new life.

Tasks are not to be seen as a fixed progression. They can be revisited and worked through again and again over time. Several tasks can be worked on simultaneously. According to Worden, the best model is one that does not lock people into one task at a time to the exclusion of other tasks. This explanation of the tasks is much clearer in this fourth edition than it was in earlier editions.

Tasks are arrival points in the process of mourning. The author gives extensive directions for reaching the arrival points. His approach becomes helpful at a time when life seems so out of control. It gives a person hope that there is something they can do to adjust to the loss.

Worden thoroughly spells out the determinants of the nature of grief. Knowing these determinants and the sound principles of grief counseling are crucial to the outcome of intervention whether by counseling or therapy. He agrees with his colleague, George Bonanna, that a one-size-fits-all approach to counseling and therapy would not be appropriate when helping people in grief.

Every helping professional will profit from Worden’s treatment of uncomplicated and complicated mourning. Especially helpful is his material on the many types of loss. Worden’s work, along with the works of Therese A. Rando, played an important part in my development of a bereavement support group model that I used for more than 30 years. I highly recommend Worden’s book.


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—Reviewed by Larry Yeagley, now retired. He has served as pastor and chaplain. He now lives in Gentry, Arkansas, United States.

January 2011

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