Table of Contents

Introduction
1: Defining Loss, Grief, And Bereavement
2: Loss as A Lifelong Process Life Events and The Loss Continuum
3: An Overview of Some Personal Losses
4: As Loss Relates to The Action of Another
5: The Inevitable Types of Loss
6: The Family Constellation of Loss Scenarios
7: Special Considerations About Loss Suicide
8: Extended Loss
9: Global, Environmental, and Geographical Loss
10: The Physiology of Loss and Grief
11: Grieving Styles
12: Across the Globe—Multicultural Understanding of Grief
13: Complicated Grief and Mourning
14: Traumatic Grief and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
15: Coping Strategies for Loss and Grief
16: Therapy, Counseling, Psychiatry, and Medication
17: Alternative Therapies
18: Unhealthy Coping and The Dangers of Self-Medicating
19: Change and What To Expect Over The Long Term
Bibliography

About the Author

Nanette Burton Mongelluzzo, PhD, is a psychotherapist in private practice, working with children, adults, adolescents, couples and families. She also works as a consultant with public and private schools on issues ranging from suicide and violence prevention to topics on mental health issues affecting youth. She is the author of Entering Adulthood: Understanding Depression and Suicide (1990), The Everything Self-Esteem Book with CD (2011), and A Comparative Case Study of the Elderly Women Beggars of Central Mexico (2006). She frequently appears on radio and television covering community mental health topics such as the 2011 Arizona wild fires and the Gabrielle Gifford shooting in Tucson, Arizona, in 2012. She teaches suicide and violence prevention programs to school and professionals.

Reviews

[Understanding Loss and Grief] reviews many different expressions of loss, not just death and bereavement, and offers helpful coping strategies and self-help tools. . . .Mongeluzzo empowers her readers to approach losses—large and small—with gentleness, acceptance, and even optimism. She also touches on losses that reach beyond the individual and family to include community and world -wide issues. Although not every aspect of the book will be relevant to everyones experience, every reader is sure to walk away with a deeper understanding of the subject and with insights to apply to his or her life. . . .Understanding Loss and Grief is a thoughtful and reassuring review of a subject that is too often misunderstood and mystifying and, in some cases, even taboo.
*The Village View*

Comprehensive and compassionate, Nanette Mongelluzzo presents a brilliantly researched, scientific resource effectively integrating the essential realities of universal loss and suffering. She's woven fascinating biological and historical data, along with engaging narrative into an instructive treatment of the roll of loss and its impact to the human condition over the course of a life time––a wealth of information, tools, and then some.
*Nancy Sherr, Founder & CEO of A Zestful Life®, www.nancysherr.com*

We are thrilled to welcome this incredibly comprehensive book by Nanette Burton Mongelluzzo into the arena of helping people recognize the wide scope of life events that create feelings of grief, and that grief is the normal and natural reaction to those events.
*Russell Friedman and John W. James, co-authors of The Grief Recovery Handbook, When Children Grieve, Moving On, and Moving Beyond Loss - www.griefrecoverymethod.com*

A wonderful and comprehensive resource for all. Nanette Burton Mongelluzzo integrates her professional experience as a psychotherapist, strong research and a thorough understanding of the process of loss and grief in her book Understanding Loss and Grief. She provides a wealth of information of the emotional, physical and spiritual impact of loss, while offering direction and guidance regarding grieving. She addresses the relationship between loss, grief and trauma, and diligently informs the reader on healthy and unhealthy ways in which people grieve. This is a compassionately written, practical and extremely useful book for all of us, as we move through this remarkable journey called life.
*Doreen Ellis, Private Practice, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist*