The Other Side of Sadness

August 15, 2009
This illuminating work by Bonanno (clinical psychology, Columbia Univ.) challenges Elisabeth Kbler-Ross's five-step model for understanding grief and the dying process. The author shares his research into the experiences of ordinary people who have lost a loved one, revealing how their personal journeys through the grief process differ remarkably from what most self-help books and the professional literature on grief describe. In warmly presented chapters, Bonanno cogently covers the traditional response to grief in Western culture, how grief many times is overcome with enlightened levity, the importance of resilience after losing a loved one, the importance of memories in the grief process, the strength that develops after overcoming a loss, and the importance of beliefs in various myths about the afterlife. VERDICT While the popular and the professional literature on death and dying continue to surge, Bonanno's work manages to offer a clearly professed alternative way to understand grief that will be a refreshing new resource for professionals, as well as for the grieving.Dale Farris, Groves, TX

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 3, 2009
He once helped debunk the theory of repressed memory; now this Columbia clinical psychology professor takes on the conventional wisdom about grieving. There's little evidence to support the existence of “stages of mourning” or the corollary that if the stages aren't followed completely, there's cause for alarm. What Bonanno does find is “a natural resilience” that guides us through the sadness of loss, and grief, rather than distracting us, actually causes the mind to focus; it also elicits the “compassion and concern” that humans are hard-wired to offer in response to another's suffering. Bonanno acknowledges that grief is sometimes extreme and requires treatment, much like post-traumatic stress disorder. But with this work, science and common sense come together in a thoughtful, kindhearted way; stories of loss go far beyond striking a familiar chord—they give us hope. As one mother who lost her daughter tells Bonanno, even years later she felt her daughter was like a “little ember, and if I need to, if I want to have Claire next to me, I blow on it, ever so gently, and it glows bright again.”