The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss
by Mary-Frances O'Connor
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A renowned grief expert and neuroscientist shares groundbreaking discoveries about what happens in our brain when we grieve, providing a new paradigm for understanding love, loss, and learning. For as long as humans have existed, we have struggled when a loved one dies. Poets and playwrights have written about the dark cloak of grief, the deep yearning, how devastating heartache feels. But until now, we have had little scientific perspective on this universal experience. In The Grieving show more Brain, neuroscientist and psychologist Mary-Frances O'Connor, PhD, gives us a fascinating new window into one of the hallmark experiences of being human. O'Connor has devoted decades to researching the effects of grief on the brain, and in this book, she makes cutting-edge neuroscience accessible through her contagious enthusiasm, and guides us through how we encode love and grief. With love, our neurons help us form attachments to others, but, with loss, our brain must come to terms with where our loved ones went, or how to imagine a future that encompasses their absence. Based on O'Connor's own trailblazing neuroimaging work, research in the field, and her real-life stories, The Grieving Brain does what the best popular science books do, combining storytelling, accessible science, and practical knowledge that will help us better understand what happens when we grieve and how to navigate loss with more ease and grace. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
The first half of this book was fantastic! Lots of interesting ways to understand why grief is such a mindfuck. And then the second half prescribes CBT. Which, I get, the author focuses on cognitions in her profession so there’s her wheelhouse. But after decades as a therapist I’m pretty clear that grief is not a thinking error. And, that complicated grief is perhaps not served by talk therapy.
Dr. O'Connor is not a therapist but a researcher who uses the full range of tools to explore grief, from CT sans and fMRIs to interviews and surveys. The result is an enlightening exploration of grief and how to process and live with it.
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Psychology: Abuse, Grief, Self-Help
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trauma
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6 Works 233 Members
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- Reviews
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- Languages
- English, Portuguese, Spanish
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- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 11
- ASINs
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