Customer Reviews

Transcending Loss

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Ashley Prend has written a sensitive and well organized book that is good for clinicians and those coping with loss. Her clear delineation of the stages of grief and the hope she holds out that one can get through the stuck places and make loss meaningful stand out. She writes well and the structure of the book makes it easy to read. The message that one does not need to "get over" one's loss is an important one as is her SOAR solution for integrating the loss in one's life so that one can "get on with" life.

Ashley Davis Prend makes a bold move to help people struggling with grief. No other authority has touched on the concept of how grief is processed for a life-time more comprehensively. Prend makes clear the fact that our quality of living is dramatically changed with each loss. She also points out that each of us make an individual choice in whether we use grief to resign from life or use it to design our life. In this book you will find useful information on how to deal with the early stages of loss, (acute grief) to how to reinvest in new ways of living that are meaningful and joyful. The only missing ingredient that I see is how to motivate grieving people to envision that possibility. Prend touches the wholistic concepts of body, mind, and spirit with her SOAR concepts. Many will find these practical ideas enough to help them make their transition from the negative aspects of grief and to transcend its holdf to a positive way of new found joy. The motivational aspect, which is a most critical first step, becomes a very minor omittance. Prend's book will be a cornerstone for a new type of grief therapy that provides honest, accurate, and truthful answers for all of us who suffer loss and for those who care for them. Prend's book is supberb.

Along the lines of "When Bad Things Happen to Good People," this book can really helpful in allowing you work through your grief in a positive, healthy way.

I have experienced a great deal of loss in my life (parent, sister, husband) and -- at 34 years old -- am not one to swallow trite explanations like "everything happens for a reason." This book doesn't try to do that, but it does try to help you figure out how to go on with the rest of your life and find joy.

I would recommend it to anyone who is suffering a loss. It would make a very meaningful gift, as well.

As I move through the grieving experience in my life - as the years go by since the loss of my daughter - I find myself coming back to this book and rereading sections. It's a huge help.

Victoria, my wife of 17 years died suddenly 3 months ago, needless to say it was so devastating, I have never experienced anything like this in my whole life; anger, shock, confusion, a pain so intense that it was terrifying. This book helped me so much in understanding my grief, it pointed the way for me to start coming up from the depths of my despair. The author has done a wonderful work. There are other fine books, but this one did it for me.

Tragic loss and grief alter the human mind and spirit. This book is a must-read early on in the grief process because it helps you understand exactly what you are going through. Written in a clear, simple, caring but honest voice - it encourages you to go through your own process at your own pace. It acknowledges the truth that your life has now changed forever, but reveals there are several ways to go with stages that follow the immediate pain and grief of loss. It helps you better understand, and transcend, what happens to us when our hearts are ripped apart. It helps you learn to love that scar that remains for life. It's a reminder that the depth of the love is the depth of the grief - but grief also prompts you to reorganize your life and forge your loss into a "new" relationship with your loved one in the form of memories that allow them to live in your heart and continue to nourish you. So glad I read it - and I continue to refer to it as I continue to seek my own healing and become better at understanding how my beloved sister is still with me at all times.

This book has been more helpful than any other that I've read since the death of my husband of 38 years almost three months ago.
I've also found A Time to Grieve" by Carol Staudacher very useful, with meditations every day for healing after the loss of a loved one.

The author eschews the common rubric that the goal of bereavement therapy is to "get over it" and move on. While she still refers to the so-called stages of grief, with which many disagree, she has a solid plan called SOAR which consists of steps that the bereaved can use to chart a new relationship with the one who has passed which respects the need of the survivor to incorporate the lost one into their lives. She encourages healing and evolving rather than "curing" grief. An excellent book for those in need of some structure for reconstructing their life after loss.

After losing my dad, a friend lent this book to me. Immediately I connected with it's message "Death doesn't end the relationship, it simply forges a new type of relationship - one based not on physical presence but on memory, spirit , and love."

I purchased 6 copies to give to family members and they have all said how much it's helped them understand the grieving process, how what they are feeling isn't abnormal, and that it's ok to feel and think anything that comes to you because it's all part of the process.

I absolutely recommend this book to anyone who's ever lost a love one or friend.

Ashley Davis Prend's statement that "Death doesn't end the relationship, it simply forges a new type of relationship--one based not on physical presence but on memory, spirit, and love.." was one of the most comforting things I have read. She encourages you to transcend in spite of the pain. There is a bit too much religion in the book, but otherwise it is most comforting and helpful.