A Good Friend for Bad Times: Helping Others Through Grief
by Deborah E. Bowen, Susan L. Strickler
Category: Family & Relationships

When watching a friend or loved one grieve a loss, you certainly want to help. But how, exactly; can you help? In what manner? With which tasks? In A Good Friend for Bad Times, grief counselors Deborah Bowen and Susan Strickler offer advice and concrete suggestions for helping a friend throughout the grief experience. A remarkably practical resource, this book first grounds you with an understanding of normal responses to grief, then offers insight for expressing sympathy and emotional support. In subsequent chapters, the authors give specific suggestions for both "what to do" and "what not to do" when providing assistance all through your friend's grief journey -- when anticipating a loved one's death, immediately after that death, and in the months and years beyond. In addition, this book relates how you can be supportive when the death involved particular circumstances, such as Alzheimer's disease, cancer, AIDS, suicide, or the death of a child. Special chapters advise how to comfort a friend whose loved one died in a catastrophic event; how to acknowledge your friend's grief on holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries; and how to reassure and console young children. In short, this hands-on guidebook will help you act on your impulse to be a good friend in bad times. Book jacket.