Tuesday, April 26, 2011

What Is Complicated Grief?

Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.  ~ Dr. Earl A. Grollman 

You may have heard of the controversy over including Prolonged Grief Disorder in the latest (March 2022) edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR), which is the most widely used psychiatric reference in the world. Over the last ten years, mental health professionals and researchers have worked diligently to agree upon specific criteria for identifying and assessing complicated grief ~ in order to obtain payment for treatment and funding for research, to identify those at risk, and to distinguish depression from complicated grief. 

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Understanding and Managing Grief, April 17 - April 23

Best selections from Grief Healing's Twitter stream this week:
  • Advice For Dating A Widower With A Pre-Schooler: Meet Matt Logelin's Girlfriend,
  • Mother’s Day: Survival Techniques After the Death of a Child: free Webinar with Darcie Sims,

Caregiving and Hospice, April 17 - April 23

Best selections from Grief Healing's Twitter stream this week:
  • Take 15 minutes to watch this inspiring video, as Mary Labyak receives NHPCO's Healthcare Architect Award,

Coping with Pet Loss, April 17 - April 23

Best selections from Grief Healing's Twitter stream this week:

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Revival Redesign

[Reviewed and updated February 8, 2020]

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again.  ~ Joseph Campbell

Susan Reynolds is a physical therapist, certified interior redesigner and home stager who also specializes in space renewal for those who’ve experienced personal loss.  Her book, Room for Change: Practical Ideas for Reviving after Loss, combines interior redesign principles with those of grief recovery, providing practical tips on making small changes to the environment that will help a person "revive" after a loss.  Susan speaks from experience; finding herself newly widowed and an empty nester at the age of 49, she took her education and training in wellness and ergonomics and enrolled in a program to become certified in both interior redesign and staging. She now consults with hospices on how interior design can help clients feel comfortable and safe, and speaks at bereavement groups to teach her methods to people who have suffered loss.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Understanding and Managing Grief, April 10 - April 16

Best selections from Grief Healing's Twitter stream this week:

Caregiving and Hospice, April 10 - April 16

Best selections from Grief Healing's Twitter stream this week:
  • Helping hospice patients nationwide keep their pets, pay for pet food, vet and grooming costs, @ 

Coping with Pet Loss, April 10 - April 16

Best selections from Grief Healing's Twitter stream this week:
  • Dedication or denial of reality? Euthanasia or not? A Veterinarian's perspective,

Thursday, April 14, 2011

April 16 Is National Health Care Decisions Day


The National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD) Initiative is a collaborative effort of national, state and community organizations committed to ensuring that all adults with decision-making capacity in the United States have the information and opportunity to communicate and document their healthcare decisions.

To highlight the importance of advance healthcare decision-making, April 16 has been designated as National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD).

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Celebrating National Volunteer Week, April 10 - April 16

In a previous post, Healing through the Gift of Volunteering, I noted that at some point in the course of your own grief journey you may find yourself thinking about becoming a hospice volunteer.  The agency with which I was affiliated for 17 years, Hospice of the Valley in Phoenix, AZ, was founded by volunteers, and to this day, volunteers at Hospice of the Valley are considered vital members of the team, supporting dying patients and their families and offering respite care.  As part of HOV's Bereavement Services, they assist staff members with office tasks, special projects, sending condolence cards and preparing bulk mailings.  Through periodic telephone calls over a 13-month period following the death, volunteers offer compassion, understanding and support, as well as referral to appropriate resources, to bereaved individuals whose family members were Hospice of the Valley patients.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Caregiving and Hospice, April 3 - April 9

Best selections from Grief Healing's Twitter stream this week:

Understanding and Managing Grief, April 3 - April 9

Best selections from Grief Healing's Twitter stream this week:

Coping with Pet Loss, April 3 - April 9

Best selections from Grief Healing's Twitter stream this week:

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Hospice and Caregiving, March 27 - April 2

Best selections from Grief Healing's Twitter stream this week:

Understanding and Managing Grief, March 27 - April 2

Best selections from Grief Healing's Twitter stream this week:

Coping with Pet Loss, March 27 - April 2

Best selections from Grief Healing's Twitter stream this week: