The Crafting of Grief: Constructing Aesthetic Responses to Loss

Many books on grief lay out a model to be followed, either for bereaved persons to live through or for professionals to practice, and usually follow some familiar prescriptions for what people should do to reach an accommodation with loss. The Crafting of Grief is different: it focuses on conversations that help people chart their own path through grief. Authors Hedtke and Winslade argue convincingly that therapists and counselors can support people more by helping them craft their own responses to bereavement rather than trying to squeeze experiences into a model. In the pages of this book, readers will learn how to develop lines of inquiry based on the concept of continuing bonds, and they'll discover ways to use these ideas to help the bereaved craft stories that remember loved ones' lives.

Lorraine Hedtke, MSW, LCSW, PhD, teaches about death and bereavement throughout the US and internationally. She is professor in counseling at California State University, San Bernardino, is on faculty at the Vancouver School of Narrative Therapy, and is an associate of the Taos Institute.

John Winslade, PhD, is a professor in counseling at California State University, San Bernardino. He is the coauthor of eleven books on narrative counseling and conflict resolution with translations into six other languages. He is an associate of the Taos Institute.