Although losing someone you love to a sudden or violent death is a shocking experience, there are steps you can take to heal. This book provides compassionate support and creative ways to soothe and transform your emotions with powerful, but simple strategies that: - Promote healing and calm feelings of anxiety, anger, or despair - Alleviate nightmares, intrusive images, and ruminating thoughts - Relieve guilt and regrets so you can open up to new experiences in your life - Help you get the kind of support you want from other people - Retain "the living story" of your loved one and sense them as a positive presence in your life Recent reviews: "Courtney Armstrong's Transforming Traumatic Grief provides practical tools to comfort grievers, promotes resilience and hope for those who have been devastated by tragedy and loss, and shows ways to create renewed meaning in life beyond grief and trauma." - Bill O'Hanlon, author of Thriving Through Crisis and Quick Steps to Resolving Trauma "Unlike other books detailing therapies that work at the cognitive level of the mind, "Transforming Traumatic Grief" is a how-to book of practical (and even more importantly) attainable activities and proven strategies for those dealing with grief and loss. As a therapist specializing in trauma counseling and her own personal experience with loss, Armstrong builds a strong case for why we need to speak to the emotional brain in a language it understands. Unless we do, she argues, the traumatized and grief-stricken simply can't experience a shift in how they're feeling. Written in a voice that emanates from a very personal place, Armstrong's book is both comforting and empowering. It's for anyone having difficulty moving through grief or growing from their traumatic experience. It's also for therapists who want to help their patients help themselves in between appointments or post-therapy." Nancy Gerhsman, www.artforyoursake.com "A must-read! An indispensable guide for transforming traumatic grief into healing reconnection." - Jon Connelly, Ph.D, LCSW, Founder, Institute for Rapid Resolution Therapy

Facing the loss of someone or something we love can be overwhelming. Yet grief is a natural and universal process for healing from life’s painful events. Transforming Grief offers insights to help us tap our innate resiliency, courage, and compassion, along with practical ways to honor and work through our grief. Join social anthropologist and award-winning author Dr. Marilyn Schlitz to learn more about: • Building new responses to fear and discomfort • Reconsidering the five phases of grief • Acknowledging the time and work involved in grieving • Three grief practices: Walking the Labyrinth, Laughter Yoga, and Communion with the Dead • Fostering connection to both the living and the deceased through shared grief practices “We tend to define our grief by what we no longer have, rather than by what the departed loved one has given us,” writes Marilyn Schlitz. “Healing may come when we allow ourselves to risk again, to continue growing, and to invite transformation.” For anyone seeking guidance on the challenging journey through loss, Transforming Grief will be an inspirational companion for each step on the path. Note: Excerpted from Death Makes Life Possible by Marilyn Schlitz.

This book is a timely and relevant book for psychotherapists and psychoanalysts who process loss both in their own lives and in the lives of their patients, offering perspectives from a range of theoretical backgrounds, clinical vignettes and personal insights. This volume addresses the scope of grief and mourning between the therapeutic dyad, and carefully examines how the patient and therapist experience intersect and imbue the analytic space and the therapeutic process. The book examines personal loss of parents and partners, as well as loss generated by mass trauma through the lens of the Holocaust, the immigrant experience, the COVID-19 pandemic and the environment. There are chapters that cover how the lost other continues to live within one’s mind, and within the analytic relationship, how loss impacts one’s internal self system, and how loss associated with traumatic experience with the deceased continues to reverberate. With a unique focus on the therapist’s personal experience of loss, and how it shapes the clinical situation, as well as a broad range of perspectives on managing and working with loss in patients, this is an invaluable book for all practicing psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.

It is often said that that one never completely recovers from the loss of a loved one and the shock of bereavement leaves an indelible scar on one's soul that remains forever. Despite this, most bereaved people do return to living productive and meaningful lives, understanding that such pain is unavoidable and part of the human experience. However, in some cases the negative feelings and emotions do not subside over time and what psychologists refer to as "complicated grief" takes hold. This is a serious and debilitating condition that can take a toll on emotional and physical well-being. The good news is that, with appropriate help and support, even sufferers of complicated grief can transform their lives. This workbook is an essential part of the method known as "Love Knows No Death," an innovative approach to grief transformation. This counseling approach, which integrates both written and video lessons, reflects an "unbelievable truth" that the human mind, consciousness and personality do not end with the death of the physical body. In other words, your deceased love one is not, in fact, deceased. As one progresses through the workbook it becomes apparent that there is no religious agenda. The reality that we survive death is based upon established evidence and not blind faith, and the reader is encouraged to do their own reading, learning and thinking. The entire approach is based upon education and not preaching. This innovative approach to grief transformation is based upon established techniques of cognitive therapy. In other words, "The way you feel depends entirely on the way you think." When we learn to think "non-negatively" and replace negative, unrealistic and distorted thoughts with more balanced, neutral and realistic ones, dramatic results can be attained. The chapters and videos in this approach will take readers on a journey of exploration as they examine possible stumbling blocks, what really dies at death, and learn about the substantial evidence for life after life. Some of the phenomena examined include the powers of the mind, deathbed visions, near death experiences, apparitions, mediumship and instrumental trans-communication. Mental health professionals are coming to realize that patients who believe that their deceased loved ones still survive do better than those who do not believe in survival. The "Love Knows No Death" approach recognizes that vague hope or wishful thinking does not have the power to transform grief. Such transformation can only come from "knowing," which can be attained only through personal experiences, thorough examination of the evidence, and changing the way we think. Those who put the effort into diligently following this workbook may very well experience life changing effects. The "afterlife perspective," once integrated into the grieving process, will allow you to lead a better life and truly honor those who have passed before you.

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.