Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner - Softcover

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Over the past twenty years health care professionals have shown an increased interest in issues related to death and dying. Accompanying this has been an increase in the related subject of grief and bereavement. Grief Counselling and Grief Therapy , Second Edition, is aimed at helping mental health practitioners to understand better the complex phenomenon of bereavement in order to help those who mourn resolve their grieving in a healthy manner. Grieving over a loved one is a natural and necessary process that most people are able to experience - and emerge from - in a healthy manner. However, some people lack the support needed to help them resolve the pain of mourning. Grief often surfaces as the underlying cause of various physical and mental aberrations. This classic text on the subject has been expanded and updated to include new counselling techniques and new areas of treatment - AIDS, the elderly, and counselling in groups. There is a greatly expanded bibliography. Dr Worden details the mechanisms of normal grief and the procedures for helping clients accomplish the 'tasks of mourning'. He goes on to explain how unresolved grief can lead to problems requiring psychotherapy, and how the therapist can diagnose and treat problems related to exaggerated, chronic, masked and delayed grief reactions.