Aggrieved on TimesTwoPublishing.com
KotaPress Editor's Note:
Donnali let us publish an essay from her in our December 2001 Loss Journal
issue, and I have been impressed ever since. As I work in social services
and mental health services each day, I am stunned to come across more
and more "academic" therapists who refuse to listen to the experiences
of the bereaved and rather carelessly disregard the voices of the bereaved
as "lay people" who don't know anything. Donnali's voice is
strong and clear, and I know many therapists who need to be reading more
works like hers. Hope you will surf over to TimesTwoPublishing and find
out more about her work!
http://www.timestwopublishing.com/ww.htm
A note from Donnali:
The essay, Aggrieved (published in the KotaPress Loss Journal in December
2001), was mainly excerpted and adapted from Chapter 16 of "William
& Wendell: A Family Remembered." That chapter deals most specifically
with the limitations of grief theory, and the unnecessary pressures it
has created for the bereaved.
At the end of the essay is a link to the afterword, "Let the guinea
pigs speak: Detaching grief from theory." It addresses the new trends
in grief therapy. A number of bereavement experts have started to reverse
some of the contentions therapists have long maintained about grief, including
the concept of resolution. Although this developing movement among grief
professionals shows more consideration for the feelings of the bereaved
than traditional grief theory, it still upholds several therapeutic criteria
that are prohibitive. The afterword suggests how the bereaved can protect
themselves from any psychological theory that diverges from their experience
or makes them feel worse.
(Another KotaPress editor's note: Check out her work in full!)
