Helping Grieving People--When Tears Are Not Enough

Helping Grieving People is a training manual for care providers who will provide support and counseling to those grieving death, illness, and other losses. The author addresses grief as it affects a variety of relationships and discusses different intervention and support strategies, always cognizant of individual and cultural differences in the expression and treatment of grief. Jeffreys has established a practical approach to preparing trainee caregivers through three basic tracks: Heart, Head and Hand. The first step, Heart, calls for self discovery, freeing oneself of accumulated loss in order to focus all attention on the griever. Head emphasizes understanding the complex and dynamic phenomena of human grief. Hand stresses the caregiver's actual intervention, and speaks to the appropriate level of skill as well as the various methods of healing available. Following these three motifs, the handbook discusses the social and cultural contexts of grief as well as itspsychological constructs.