Getting Grief Right ─ Finding Your Story of Love in the Sorrow of Loss

In 2015, when the New York Times ran Patrick O’Malley’s story about the death of his infant son—and how his inability to “move on” challenged everything he was taught as a psychotherapist—it inspired an unprecedented flood of gratitude from readers that continues to this day.

What he shared was a truth that many have longed to hear: that there is no right or wrong way to grieve. Illuminated by O’Malley’s own story and those of the many clients that he’s supported, Getting Grief Right shows us how the commonly used “stages of grief” approach can trivialize our sorrow, treat it as a mental disorder, press us to “get over it,” and worsen our suffering with shame and guilt when we don’t. With sensitivity and support, readers will explore grief not as an illness, but as the continuing story of our connection to the one we’ve lost, to be fully felt and woven into our lives.

Patrick O'Malley, PHD, has been providing grief counseling and education to clients and colleagues for over 35 years. For more, visit drpatrickomalley.com.

Tim Madigan, an award-winning journalist, is the author of The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (St. Martin’s Press, 2003) and I’m Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers (Gotham/Penguin, 2006). For more, visit timmadigan.net.