![]() ![]() ![]() Her smartphone, which was hermetically sealed to her hand, perfectly embodied the false idea that busyness is potency.” Grief must not be hurried yet Brigitte’s outward behaviour suggests she has no time in which to mourn: “There is an epidemic of busyness in our world today, and Brigitte displayed a full-on version of it. Brigitte is a case history for our times. In one case history, Brigitte, who lost her mother, confesses to feeling jealous of her daughter for having what she herself now lacks: a living mother. Samuel also writes about the unspeakable yet understandable emotions sometimes present when a person is dying – such as a terminally ill person’s jealousy of the living. The book’s aim is to serve as a resource, a way of understanding grief better and “living with a reality that we don’t want to be true”. Even within a family, grief is seldom uncomplicatedly collective. And we do – although she is sensitive, too, to the thought that each person grieves differently. Samuel ventures to hope we might “be surprised to see much of ourselves in someone who is grieving an entirely different death”. There is a chapter on suicide, another on facing death ourselves. Grief Works considers the deaths of partners, parents, siblings and children. (I recognise this to be a reflex similar to the shameful impulse that makes some people cross to the other side of the street rather than face a recently bereaved parent.) Samuel makes sure you never forget that death happens in life – and that life is messily ongoing ![]() They are fascinating, affecting, but often not easy to read: there were points where I wanted to run away, especially from the accounts of parents who have lost children. Grief is the antithesis of this belief: it eschews avoidance and requires endurance, and forces us to accept that there are some things in this world that simply cannot be fixed.” The book is filled with case histories written with the permission of the people described. Paradoxically, it is the insistence on writing about what cannot be fixed that is the most powerful thought in a book that has a real chance of helping bereft readers: “Our culture is imbued with the belief that we can fix just about anything and make it better or, if we can’t, that it’s possible to trash what you have and start all over again. It should be added that, should a suitable friend be wanting, Samuel would make a great substitute. MOSAIC PRO WARRIOR 21 REVIEW PROFESSIONALBeing a good listener is “by no means the sole preserve of professional therapists” – and listening is vital. She emphasises that friends should never underestimate the importance of sympathy. What is marvellous is Samuel’s ability to feel for – and with – her patients. She is non-prescriptive, open-minded and admits to her vulnerabilities. ![]() Nor does she feel denial is always unhelpful. She does not – hurrah! – believe in “closure”. Unresolved grief has been found to be at the root of 15% of psychiatric referrals but, as Samuel makes clear, resolution is not always straightforward or even possible. Samuel writes: “Death is the great exposer: it forces hidden fault lines and submerged secrets into the open.” Grief, she believes, is “profoundly misunderstood”. She suggests not only that death is hard to contemplate but that we are discomfited by the idea of grief, encouraged to put a good face on loss and hasten towards “a new normal” (ghastly phrase). Julia Samuel is a grief psychotherapist who has spent 25 years working in the NHS at St Mary’s hospital, Paddington, and in private practice. This is a book to make time for precisely because it faces a subject most of us shy away from. “D eath, like the sun, cannot can be looked at steadily,” La Rochefoucauld wrote in 1678 – a line that sounds modern because what it describes is as true as ever. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |