The Five Ways We Grieve: Finding Your Personal Path to Healing after the Loss of a Loved One

by Susan A. Berger

In this new approach to understanding the impact of grief, Susan A. Berger goes beyond the commonly held theories of stages of grief with a new typology for self-awareness and personal growth. She offers practical advice for healing from a major loss in this presentation of five basic ways, or types, of grieving. These five types describe how different people respond to a major loss. The types are:

   •  Nomads, who have not yet resolved their grief and don’t often understand how their loss has affected their lives
   •  Memorialists, who are committed to preserving the memory of their loved ones by creating concrete memorials and rituals to honor them
   •  Normalizers, who are committed to re-creating a sense of family and community
   •  Activists, who focus on helping other people who are dealing with the same disease or issues that caused their loved one’s death
   •  Seekers, who adopt religious, philosophical, or spiritual beliefs to create meaning in their lives


Drawing on research results and anecdotes from working with the bereaved over the past ten years, Berger examines how a person’s worldview is affected after a major loss. According to her findings, people experience significant changes in their sense of mortality, their values and priorities, their perception of and orientation toward time, and the manner in which they “fit” in society. The five types of grieving, she finds, reflect the choices people make in their efforts to adapt to dramatic life changes.

By identifying with one of the types, readers who have suffered a recent loss—or whose lives have been shaped by an early loss—find ways of understanding the impact of the loss and of living more fully.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Grief

253 pages, Paperback

First published October 13, 2009

Reviews

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obviously, there are not only five ways to grieve HOWEVER Berger makes a good case for five general paths people take after major or traumatic loss. We probably become either a nomad, a memorialist, a normalizer, an activist, or a spiritual seeker. I found this very helpful, facing some grief and loss I've been navigating with in my own life. The focus is very much on losing a person you love in death, but I was able to translate as I read to other kinds of grief, too.

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beginner's guide to understanding the grieving process

If you're looking for a quick overview of grief, this guide is for you. I was hoping for something a little deeper and found it to be simple, repetitive and limited.

[Catherine Gillespie · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’ve suffered the loss of a loved one, you might have noticed that you grieve in specific ways, perhaps different from how others around you dealt with the same loss. Susan Berger’s book The Five Ways We Grieve: Finding Your Personal Path to Healing after the Loss of a Loved One offers insight into the different ways people handle grieving, and gives helpful advice on the positive and negative aspects of each type and how to move forward.

I found the book particularly helpful in understanding how other people handle grief. The book includes a lot of examples of people the author interviewed who exhibit each type, which helped me see how different people handle things and what motivates them. I think I’m better equipped to understand how other people think and react in the face of grief now, and that will help me be more sympathetic and understanding myself.

The book does not have much of a spiritual angle – there is a chapter on people who deal with grief by becoming more spiritual, but it talks mostly about people who turn to eastern religions or vague spiritualism – and so I can’t really say I found it very prescriptive on how to handle loss. It is, however, very interesting and helpful from a purely psychological angle.

I’d recommend this book if:

You’re interested in how people think and behave.
You or someone you’re close to has lost a loved one and you aren’t sure why you’re responding as you are.
You deal in any way with fictional characters. I know that last bit sounds odd, but I couldn’t help but think as I read this book how differently the character in my novel deal with loss, and I got some ideas from it.

{Read more of my reviews at A Spirited Mind.}

[Mel Baggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book after my father died. I came to it because the stages of grief made no sense to me. I kept telling people I had an almost compulsive desire to memorialize my father. Then I found that memorializing is one of the five common ways to deal with grief. I found out I also fit the pattern of seeker. This book helped me understand the good and bad of these ways of grieving. And why some of my family find my way of grieving off putting. Because they have other ways of handling grief. I'd wanted to involve everyone in a big memorial project. It turned out one person told me this would interfere with his grieving process. I didn't understand why until I read this book. I'm still a die hard memorializer. My father died half a year ago and I wear his clothes every day, constructed a shrine to him, and wear his beard hairs in a floating locket. But this book helped me understand both where I am coming from and why others may not be as eager to memorialize.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a slow read. Her point was well taken that we have different styles of grieving that enable us to emotionally and psychologically process the death of a loved one but I feel the categories here are not all there are out there - and I also feel that people may have these in an overlap. Two or three styles at the same time.

Personally, I feel that we go through these styles sometimes as stages in the grieving process. Most of us start out as Nomads (the unlucky ones stay there), move on to Memorializers (an easy first step) and then to Normalizers. Whether we become Activists or Seekers after that depends not only on our motivation and personality type but also on our social/religious environment or upbringing.

The book is well thought out but dry. It was thought provoking though and for that, I will give it 3 stars.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given to me by a friend after my daughter passed away. Not bad, not great, just meh. Ideally, I wouldn't have had to read it at all, but it did provide some insight into the grieving process, although most of it seemed pretty obvious or self-explanatory. I did get a picture of what some of my family members may be going through, though.

[Emilie Leadley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives great examples and showcases 5 different groups people fall into after a loss. It also has a thorough bibliography, resource section and questions for thought guided by the author to help with the grieving process.

[Helen]

Had to ditch this book for now. Although I found it helpful at first, it started to lose me as I got further into it. Might come back to it down the line. Just happened upon it in the library when looking for some books on the subject after my brother passed away a few months ago...

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorites

This book was recommended after the loss of someone very close. I still refer back to this fine specimen of a grief handbook and think highly of the author. It is a great gift and a fabulous helpful read when handling delicate situations such as grief.

[Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

It wasn't what I expected it to be so gave up after only about 30 pages.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it interesting and applicable to my own life. I would recommend.

[Mona El-gharbawy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite helpful, yet ok.

[Jean Brazil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skimmed this one. Another grief study. This one looks at grief by categorizing by reactions to grief.

[Ghada Amer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not like it