Understanding Your Suicide Grief

For anyone who has experienced the suicide of a loved one, coworker, neighbor, or acquaintance and is seeking information about coping with such a profound loss, this compassionate guide explores the unique responses inherent to their grief. Using the metaphor of the wilderness, the book introduces 10 touchstones to assist the survivor in this naturally complicated and particularly painful journey. The touchstones include opening to the presence of loss, embracing the uniqueness of grief, understanding the six needs of mourning, reaching out for help, and seeking reconciliation over resolution. Learning to identify and rely on each of these touchstones will bring about hope and healing.

Explaining the important difference between grief and mourning, this book explores every mourner's need to acknowledge death and embrace the pain of loss. Also explored are the many factors that make each person's grief unique and the many normal thoughts and feelings mourners might have. Questions of spirituality and religion are addressed as well. The rights of mourners to be compassionate with themselves, to lean on others for help, and to trust in their ability to heal are upheld. Journaling sections encourage mourners to articulate their unique thoughts and feelings.

This companion workbook to Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart is designed to help mourners explore the many facets of their unique grief through journaling. Ten essential touchstones for mourners are covered, including being open to the presence of loss, dispelling misconceptions about grief, embracing the uniqueness of grief, seeking reconciliation, and reaching out for help. Journalers are asked specific questions about their feelings of grief as they relate to the ten essential touchstones and are provided with writing space for their reflections.

Presenting the idea of wilderness as a sustained metaphor for grief, this compassionate guide explores the unique responses inherent to the grief felt by those who have experienced the suicide of a loved one and offers information about coping with such a profound loss. Likening the death of a loved one to the experience of being wrenched from normal life and dropped down in the middle of nowhere, the handbook employs 10 touchstones, or trail markers, that survivors use to begin to make their way through the new landscape. Each touchstone gently guides readers through the entire grieving process and includes topics such as dispelling misconceptions regarding suicide, exploring feelings, and embracing the uniqueness of a loss.

With ample space to unburden the heart and the soul, this companion workbook helps grievers explore the 10 essential touchstones for finding hope and healing. The exercises throughout the journal recall the content of the book and ask corresponding questions about the survivor's unique grief journey.

A suicide leaves behind more victims than just the individual. And yet there are very few professional resources that provide the necessary background, research, and tools to effectively work with the survivors. This edited volume addresses the need for an up-to-date, professionally oriented summary of the clinical and research literature on the impact of suicide bereavement on survivors.

With ample space to unburden the heart and the soul, this companion workbook helps grievers explore the 10 essential touchstones for finding hope and healing. The exercises throughout the journal recall the content of the book and ask corresponding questions about the survivor's unique grief journey.

A 2003 Finalist in the United Kingdom Christian Book Awards "Albert," the neighbor said, "your mom needs you to come home." That's how it began for Albert Hsu when his father died. Anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide experiences tremendous shock and trauma. What follows is a confusing mix of emotions—anger, guilt, grief, and despair. Suicide raises heartrending questions: Why did this happen? Why didn't we see it coming? Could we have done anything to prevent it? How can we go on? Many also wonder if those who choose suicide are doomed to an eternity separated from God and their loved ones. Some may even start asking whether life is worth living at all. After his father's death, Hsu wrestled with the intense emotional and theological questions surrounding suicide. While acknowledging that there are no easy answers, he draws on the resources of the Christian faith to point suicide survivors to the God who offers comfort in our grief and hope for the future. For those who have lost a loved one to suicide and for their counselors and pastors, this book is an essential companion for the journey toward healing. This revised edition incorporates updated statistics and now includes a discussion guide for suicide survivor groups.