Customer Reviews

Finding Your Way through Grief: A Guide for the First Year, Second Edition

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This is a wonderful book. If you have lost someone you love and don't know how to handle the pain and grief, this is the book for you. If you know someone looking for a resource to help someone else and they just don't know what to do, give them this book as a guide.

I read Finding Your Way Through Grief, A Guide for the First Year written by Marty Tousley, CNS,-BC, FT, DCC on two different levels: personal and clinical. Because she is a nurse, bereavement counselor and mother who lost her own child and I am a bereaved mother and psychotherapist who lost an adult child to cancer, I thought we would have much in common in our lives and we do.

Marty Tousley gives a piece of advice early in the book, "Grief is not an illness to be cured...." That thought alone provides comfort to any mourner for it recognizes grieving as a natural process when we have suffered the loss of someone we love. Her statement recognizes that grief is a universal, normal response to loss not pathology as some might hold.

This book generously validates all of our feelings of loss, "It never really ends; you don't get over grief. It is something you will learn to live with...." This respects the grieving person. It immediately helps remove any residue of guilt a reader might hold in a society that wants us all back at our desk in three days.

This book states how death can prompt a crisis of faith. Many books about loss do not take on this topic but it's true. People often do feel their faith shake. I found the topics nurse and bereavement counselor Marty Tousley addressed - confusion, disorientation and fear - and her suggestions in how to cope with these emotions not only applicable but practical to the daily task of trying to live one's life again. As anyone who has lost someone knows, we are disoriented; we walk around stunned and lost so Marty Tousley's compassionate advice to be gentle with ourselves was a welcomed gift.

Other gifts lie in this book in the form of constructive suggestions - as on Page 17 to "Follow the lead of the person who is dying...." When I read that statement I felt validated that I had done the right thing with my own beloved child and also with my mother who died the year before my daughter. It's one thing to be knowledgeable professionally about grief but it's another experience altogether when it's personal. Marty Tousley aligns those experiences giving credibility and authenticity to the chapters.

Overall, this book is a helpful, useful, wonderful manual. It's a comfort guide and a road map about grieving and dying. I have already begun using Finding Your Way as I facilitate my own grief groups because Marty Tousley's writing and information demonstrates a depth of knowledge throughout that is not only clear and concise, it is comforting and healing. Finding Your Way Through Grief is a blessing.

Mary Jane Hurley Brant, M.S., CGP
Psychotherapist, Grief Specialist
Author of When Every Day Matters:
A Mother's Memoir on Love, Loss and Life
Simple Abundance Press
Available at Amazon.com

Losing anyone dear to us brings a crisis to our lives that is beyond definition. Whether a parent, friend, partner, sibling, spouse or animal companion, the pain is so often beyond measure that we feel as if nothing and no one can bring us out of our grief. Marty Tousley, Bereavement Counselor and member of Hospice of the Valley, Phoenix AZ offers a book that quite likely will be the best guide through the grieving and healing process following such a loss, that anyone would need. Finding Your Way Through Grief takes us through that first, most traumatic year following the death of a beloved one. The book is divided into four parts for easy referencing and each section studies loss and grief in depth, from the various stages of shock, confusion, anger and guilt, to name a few, to how to find a support group and professional help. There is a section devoted to helping a child deal with grief, and how to work through the death of a dog, cat, or other companion animal. Marty Tousley, highly professional in her field of grief counseling, writes from experience as a bereaved parent and bereaved child, with a clear sense of compassion. The text is well organized, easy to follow from the beginning or access at any point in the book, with suggested ways to help another person who is suffering through grief. This is an important feature,for anyone who is grieving the loss of a loved one needs any such help to be concise and easy to comprehend. A resource section follows the text with further reading material including books and magazines and grief healing discussion groups. I highly recommend this book - it should be in everyone's personal library.

In "Finding Your Way Through Grief," author/bereavement counselor Marty Tousely has created the essential handbook for those who are trying to regain their physical, spiritual and psychological footing after the death of someone close to them. In her clear, compassionate, approachable style, she offers invaluable insight on every aspect of the grieving process, both immediately after the loss and through that first critical year of adjustment. Being an animal chaplain myself, I was particularly pleased to see that she included a section on pet loss, thereby validating an experience too many in our society dismiss.

Tousely obviously calls upon her training in grief counseling and her work at Hospice of the Valley in plumbing the depths of all aspects of grieving and/or mourning, even including a section to help those of us who want to be of support to a friend or relative who has experienced the death of someone close to him or her but who don't know what to do. "Finding Your Way Through Grief," as its cover suggests, really does act as a compass for its readers, providing direction to those who themselves feel lost after a loss.

Sid Korpi, author of "Good Grief: Finding Peace After Pet Loss"

This is the best book I've found on this subject. I've learned a lot about meself and have been able to accept certain things and move on the the next challenge. It helps you understand that this can be a long process.

This book is a wonderful grieving aid. I only wish I had been introduced to this book when I was going through my divorce. Grieving the loss of a 30 year marriage was so painful and filled with so many questions that this book answers. I recommend this book for those who are grieving the loss of anything important in their life.

My husband of 54 years passed away 2 months ago. This book from Hospice helped me understand more of what I am going thru. Very well written with compassion and coping skills to go on.
Thank you,
Maude

I"m a 48 year old widow having lost my husband Jim to Esophageal Cancer 9.25.09, I have read several books on Grief and this is by far the best book
to help you get through the first year and understand what grief is and what you are feeling, doing, not doing is normal... Easy read