Recommended Reading
The Grief Recovery Handbook
The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce, and Other Losses including Health, Career, and Faith
John W. James and Russell Friedman
Overview:
This classic guide which has helped many people move beyond loss and towards recovery, has been expanded in this special 20th anniversary edition. The new material includes guidelines for choosing which loss to work on first and specific instruction for dealing with loss of health, career, faith, and much more.
Incomplete recovery from grief can have a lifelong negative effect on the capacity for happiness. Drawing from their own histories as well as from others’, the authors illustrate how it is possible to recovery from grief and regain energy and spontaneity. Based on a proven program, The Grief Recovery Handbook offers grievers the specific actions needed to move beyond loss.
New material in this edition includes:
- Loss of faith
- Loss of career and financial issues
- Loss of health
- Growing up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional home
When Children Grieve
For Adults to Help Children Deal with Death, Divorce, Pet Loss, Moving, and Other Losses
John W. James and Russell Friedman with Dr. Leslie Landon Matthews
Overview:
To watch a child grieve and not know what to do is a profoundly difficult experience for parents, teachers, and caregivers. Yet, there are guidelines for helping children develop a lifelong healthy response to loss.
In When Children Grieve, the authors offer a cutting-edge volume to free children from the false idea of “not feeling bad” and to empower them with positive, effective methods of dealing with loss.
There are many life experiences that can produce feelings of grief in a child, from the death of a relative or a divorce in the family to more everyday experiences such as moving to a new neighborhood or losing a prized possession. No matter the reason or degree of severity, if a child you love is grieving, the guidelines examined in this thoughtful book can make a difference.
Moving On
Dump Your Relationship Baggage and Make Room for the Love of Your Life
Russell Friedman and John W. James
Overview:
In this groundbreaking book, Russell Friedman and John W. James show readers how to move on from unsuccessful past relationships and finally find the loves of their lives. Demonstrating revolutionary ideas that have worked for thousands of their clients at the Grief Recovery Institute, Friedman and James give readers the strategies they need to effectively mourn the loss of their relationships, while opening themselves up to love in the future. With compassionate guidance, Friedman and James help readers to close a chapter of their romantic pasts so they can begin again.
Moving Beyond Loss
Russell Friedman and John W. James
In October 2010 the authors became exclusive providers of grief and grief-recovery-related content on a memorial website called, a site that receives approximately three million unique hits per month, and to which readers submit very personal and unique grief-related questions. Collected in this book are not only a bounty of personal and often moving questions but also the authors’ equally compelling responses and tips for using the Grief Recovery Method to deal with broken hearts. The book not only deals with grief from loss of a loved one, but also the grieving that occurs following a divorce, a sudden downturn in health, the loss of a job, and even the loss of faith.
The Grief Recovery Handbook for Pet Loss
Russell Friedman, Cole James, and John W. James
If you’ve found yourself almost inconsolable after your pet died, please know that you’re normal.
If you’ve found that your family and friends don’t seem to understand the level of your grief, please know that, too, is normal.
Without comparing our relationships with our pets to those with people, we know that, because of the unique emotional relationships we have with our pets, their deaths produce a level of pain that is difficult to describe.
If you relate to any or all of these sentences, this book is for you.
We have been there and most probably will be there again. We will be with you on this journey to help your heart deal with the absence of your cherished companion.