If you’re interested in this topic and want to find out more, you might like to see the on-demand CPD videos we have on this same subject. You can see our video library on this topic over on our sister site Therapy Education Online (ThEO).

At Brighton Therapy Partnership we are great fans of the good old fashioned *Resources List*. We’ve put the following list together to help any counsellor or psychotherapist who is working with someone who is bereaved.

The field of bereavement is a vast subject area, so we’re unlikely to have covered everything here but we hope we’ve given you a flavour of what’s available, introduced you to a few resources you’ve not come across before, and given you a place that you can come back to time and time again and dip into whenever you need to find something to resource yourself or those you are working with.

While you’re here you might want to check out our recent blogpost that looks at different ways to understand and work with people who are bereaved – our blogpost Models of Grief – What Therapists Need to Know covers the main ways of working with this universal experience of loss.

In this blogpost we focus on resources aimed at adults who have been bereaved, or for therapists working with adults. We will cover resources available for those working with bereaved children in a separate post.

Please do leave a comment in the comments section at the end of the page, and do let us know if there are any vital resources that we’ve missed!

Training Courses

• Brighton Therapy Partnership – Join our upcoming workshop  *Working with Complexity in Grief* by Dr Erin Hope Thompson on Friday 18th October 2024 from 10am – 4pm on Zoom.

• The Loss Foundation – Webinars and workshops offering bereavement guidance for mental health practitioners, companies, individuals and healthcare staff.

Bereavement and Grief Resources

There are so many wonderful resources to learn from, so we’re highlighting here the diversity of those resources to include fictional books as well as longer academic books or guides, TV and film, documentaries, podcasts and more.

Learn more about working with bereavement in our online CPD workshop: *Working with Complexity in Grief* by Dr Erin Hope Thompson on Friday 18th October 2024 from 10am – 4pm on Zoom. 

Books

• Books for therapists
  • Supporting People through Loss and Grief: An Introduction for Counsellors and Other Caring Practitioners – Dr John Wilson provides a comprehensive guide to counselling and supporting people experiencing loss and grief.
  • Attachment Informed Grief Therapy
  • Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief
  • The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds – the classic text by John Bowlby uses attachment theory to understand the emotional distress caused by separation and loss. Helpful for both practitioners and parents.
  • The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss – the classic and much praised book by George Bannano which rejects the stages model of grief. He explores Chinese mourning rituals, case studies from families who lost a loved one during 9/11, and more to offer a refreshing reappraisal of cultural differences surrounding loss and healing. His positive message is that we are far more capable than we know.

• Books for those who are bereaved
  • The Plain Guide to Grief – Dr John Wilson’s excellent, simply written, and hugely informative text on how to manage grief following a life changing loss. Written during the CoVid pandemic in 2020, so right up-to-date.
  • A Matter of Life and Death – insights and comfort from acclaimed psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, his wife Marilyn Yalom (and others) to all those facing death and loss, so that they can live meaningfully.
  • On Death and Dying – What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy & Their Own Families – Elizabeth Kubler Ross’ classic book told from the perspective of the person dying, rather than those left behind.
  • On Grief and Grieving – Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss – a deeply empathetic and accessible guide for those in grief by Elizabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler.
  • Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death and Surviving – Julia Samuel on dealing with grief.
  • The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia and Depression
  • With the End in Mind: How to Live and Die Well – a memoir with palliative care doctor Kathryn Mannix.
  • Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief – transforming loss into peace by Joanne Cacciatore.
  • SOS – A Handbook for Survivors of Suicide – free resource put together by the American Association of Suicidology.
  • What Suicide Left Behind: Navigating Your Own Grief Journey – written by Linzi Meaden who lost her only sibling to suicide in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown.
  • We Never Said Goodbye: A Story About the Loss of a Mother – written by Chloe Whyte about the agonising loss of her mother to suicide.
  • Pregnancy and Infant Loss Book List – a booklist put together by verywellfamily.com on grief of pregnancy and infant loss.
  • Tear Soup: A Recipe for Healing After Loss – An illustrated book for adults or children, telling the fable of a woman who cooks up her own recipe for dealing with loss and mourning, by Pat Schweibert.

• Essays and Fictional books 
  • Grief Is the Thing with Feathers – part novella, part fable, part essay; this is a beautiful read by Max Porter.
  • Notes on Grief – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes about the death of her Father during the Coronavirus pandemic (reviewed here), also available as an audiobook on Audible.
  • Tuesdays With Morrie: An old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson – Mitch Albom.
  • The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion.
  • Being Mortal -Atul Gawande, also available as an audiobook on Audible.
  • A Grief Observed – C.S. Lewis.
  • The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief – Francis Weller, also available as an audiobook on Audible.

Podcasts

• Griefcast: Funny People Talking About Death – in each episode Cariad Lloyd chats to a different guest about their experiences of grief and loss.
• Grief Encounters – A weekly podcast series that looks at grief.
• Grief Works – from acclaimed author and psychotherapist, Julia Samuel, we hear stories from those who have experienced great love and loss – and survived.
• Bereavement Room – a safe space for people of colour to tell their stories of grief and loss.
• The Art of Dying Well – These programmes aim to make death and dying something we can talk about openly without discomfort or fear. Each month they interview a guest on a key topic.
• On the Marie Curie Couch – Listen in as a host of well-known guests open up and share their experiences of grief and death in a therapeutic conversation with Marie Curie bereavement expert, Jason Davidson.

TED talks

• BJ Miller – talks on palliative care that help patients to face their deaths comfortably and on their own terms.
• Nora McInerny: We don’t “move on” from grief, we move forward with it – Nora shares her candid approach to death and grieving. You can read more about Nora’s story in this article from The Guardian Newspaper – “We crammed 30 years into four when the love of my life got a brain tumour”.

Nora McInerny talks about 2014, the year she had a miscarriage, her father died, and her husband discovered he had terminal cancer.

Films & Plays

• Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991) (watch a trailer) – A woman struggles to cope with the death of her lover, and faces a choice between holding onto the past and facing the future.
• Tuesdays with Morrie (1999) (watch it here) – A journalist finds himself questioning his own life when his best friend, a dying man, offers him some very powerful wisdom and advice.
• Evelyn (2018) (watch a trailer) – takes a look at the emotional impact of a suicide in the family, and the collective trauma that can result. Set against the beautiful British countryside, this is an emotionally moving, yet rewarding film.
• Notes on Grief – adapted from the acclaimed book by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, this play is a powerful reflection on family, love and loss.

Michelle Asante, centre, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, with Itoya Osagiede and Uche Abuah in Notes on Grief. Photograph: Tristram Kenton.

Documentaries

• A Love That Never Dies (watch it here) – Two bereaved parents set off on a road trip around the USA talking to other bereaved families, and challenging the culture of not talking about death.
• Joey Essex: Grief and Me (BBC iPlayer – watch it here) – Popular celebrity, Joey Essex, talks about the loss of his mum at age 10 when she took her own life.
• Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum and Dad (BBC iPlayer – watch a trailer) – A year after losing his wife to cancer, Rio Ferdinand talks about coming to terms with the loss and how it has affected him and his three children.
• Professor Green: Suicide and Me (BBC iPlayer – watch a trailer) – Rapper Professor Green takes an intensely personal journey to uncover the truth behind the suicide of his father – and why suicide is the biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK.
• Like Minds – (BBC – watch it here) Why grief is not something you have to ‘get over’.
• Speaking Grief – (watch it here).

YouTube

• Dr Katherine Shear – Various talks, particularly on the subject of complicated grief.
• Dr Kenneth Doka – Various talks and interviews, particularly around disenfranchised grief.
• Dr. Joanne Cacciatore – In this interview Joanne Cacciatore talks about traumatic death and grief.

Websites / Blogs / Practical Resources

• Megan Divine – Grief Support That Doesn’t Suck – Various support and resources for the bereaved and for those supporting the bereaved.
• A Bed For My Heart – Support for families who have experienced the loss of a child.
• What’s Your Grief? – Resources, online courses, and a place to share your experiences of grief.
• The Good Grief Project – Supporting families grieving after the untimely death of a loved one, particularly the death of a child.

• David Kessler – A series of free talks on grief.
• Good Life, Good Death, Good Grief – Brings together people and organisations that are interested in improving people’s experiences of death, dying and bereavement in Scotland.
• Dying Matters – Online resources and forum that openly challenge the stigma of talking about death and dying.
• Compassionate Friends – peer support groups for bereaved parents, grandparents and siblings.
• Grief UK – Lots of free articles etc. on all types of losses, and they offer training in the Grief Recovery Method.
• Death Cafe – At a Death Cafe people drink tea, eat cake and discuss death. Their aim is to increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives.
• Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide – Meeting the needs and overcoming the isolation experienced by people over 18 who have been bereaved by suicide.
• Miscarriage Association – List of books about miscarriage, still birth, infant death and infertility.
• How to Help a Friend Through Grief
• Covid-19 – How the pandemic has reshaped our experience of grief.
• Seven tips to cope with grief during lockdown – article by Dr John Wilson.
• Coping With Grief After Losing A Child – article by Dr John Wilson.
• Author of The Last Act of Love talks about grief – Cathy Rentzenbrink was told “time heals”. The reality of grief, though, proved very different.
• What happens in the body during grief
• Article about losing a husband – My husband died a year ago. Here’s what he taught us about life and love.
• Grief & chronic illness – The Stages of Grief After Learning You Can’t Be ‘Fixed’.
• Comforting ways to stay connected with someone after they’re gone – Marie Curie article with some ideas for how to keep a sense of connection as part of the grieving process.

Organisations

The Loss Foundation – free support for those bereaved by Cancer or CoVid19.

• Muslim Bereavement Support Service (MBSS)
• The Loss Foundation – The Loss Foundation is the only UK charity dedicated solely to providing bereavement support following the loss of a loved one to cancer, whether that be spouses, family members, friends or colleagues. They also offer specific Covid-19 loss support.
• BAMEStream Bereavement Support Service – offering free therapeutic support in over 20 different languages to people from Black, Asian and other minority ethnic (BAME) communities.
• Cruse Bereavement Care
• Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide – National charity with local and online support groups.
• Miscarriage Association
• Blue Cross – Support through pet bereavement and pet loss.
• SAMM – Provides a wide range of peer support services to people bereaved by murder and manslaughter.
• Strong Men – A bereavement charity for men aged 18+ to help men tackle the mental, emotional and physical health conditions brought about by bereavement.

While a lot of research has gone into this resource, inevitably there will be things we’ve missed. We’ll keep adding to this over time but if you’d like to suggest an addition please do let us know. And if you’ve found this blogpost helpful sharing with your peers and colleagues so they can increase their learning is appreciated.

If you found this blogpost helpful please share it with your peers. You can also say something in the comments section below.

* there are affiliate links in this post, if you buy a book using one of these affiliate links we will get a very small fee. It all helps! Thank you!

Learn more about working with bereavement in our online CPD workshop: *Working with Complexity in Grief* by Dr Erin Hope Thompson on Friday 18th October 2024 from 10am – 4pm on Zoom.