N0 matter what job we do, we all need therapy, it's good to read thoughts on grief. It's an ok book.

Even therapists need professional therapy treatments to wrk through their personal emotional suffering.

I didn’t enjoy the book or find it useful for anything I’m involved with. The concepts were a bit shaky. There was a lot of descriptive language which didn’t need to be there. Felt a bit like they were just filling pages.

The authors skillfully explore the complex emotions therapists experience when being therapists. With deep empathy, the authors provides an invaluable roadmap for therapists navigating grief while continuing to care for their clients. Their wise guidance validates the grieving process, allowing clinicians to honor their losses while growing as healers.

Happy release day to the authors of this book.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to read the book, as the protected file I'd downloaded self destroyed in April before I had a chance to read it and the book was already archived on Netgalley when I went to download another copy. I wrote an e-mail to the publisher to ask for a new copy, but never got a reply, sadly.

I was very interested in reading this one, since it's a topic I often discuss with my therapist friends. I'd still be open to read and review a copy.

Thank you for accepting my request!

(rating because Netgalley forces me to rate, otherwise I'd gone no rating as I haven't read the book)

A skilfully and empathetically written book. Absolutely something that would be of use to anyone working in the health and social care arena.
As a psychotherapist I found this book extremely insightful and thought-provoking. Definitely a resource that is much needed.

This is the warm hug I need now, and definitely needed three years ago as a social worker, caring for others and self during such crazy times. If you are therapist, supervisor or student this has to be required reading. The writers take you through the challenges of being a caregiving professional in such a unique, narrative way that you are left feeling seen, heard and held.

Thank you to Netgalley and publishers for the ARC!

Thank you to Larisa and Justine for writing this book based on their experiences. As a therapist it was helpful to hear your stories and not feel so alone. Thanks Netgalley!

As a mental health practitioner, I found "The Grieving Therapist" an interesting resource that tackles the complex topic of loss in many of its realms. The book shows that as therapists we're not immune to very human, everyday problems and occurrences and support of peers, supervisors, as well as own work and therapy are of great importance.

Even though this book was mainly aimed at American readers, therefore some of the parts may be irrelevant elsewhere, and at times I found the writing a bit too woo-woo for my liking, I still got a lot form it. What was especially valuable was the focus on all parts of the therapeutic systems-clients/patients, therapists, trainees and supervisors that may need different types of resources or interventions.

The Grieving Therapist by Larisa Garski and Justine Mastin is an insightful read into the difficulties faced by therapists in today’s world. Many therapists have been faced with increasing loss and hearing about loss by their clients due to the recent pandemic. In the book, the Grieving Therapist, the topic of dealing with grief is significantly covered. It provides guidance to therapists as to how to handle their own grief so that they can assist their clients with theirs. It serves as a reminder and guidebook to therapists that they must engage in the self-care habits that they direct their clients to do. This guidebook was engaging as the narration was not “all knowing” and “directive”, but rather, guiding and helpful. Each section also known as “realm” of the book provides “grieving tools” where personal vignettes and stories of real life implementation of tools were shared. This was especially helpful and insightful. There are many skills and tools presented in the book including- establishing limits, having a neutral zone, not magnifying everything and there is much more. I found that I recognized many of the tools that were presented, but perhaps may have utilized different terminology to explain them. I liked the terminology that was utilized in this book. Each “realm” or chapter includes a description of the tool being discussed, ways for the therapist to use the tool with the client, ways for the therapist to utilize the tool him/herself, tips for supervisors, advice to new therapists, and meditations. There was a significant amount of helpful information provided in this book. I highly recommend it. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is a very important topic to consider - especially at the times we are currently living. The text approaches this conversation well and would be of benefit to anyone in a helping profession (not just therapists).

#TheGrievingTherapist #NetGalley
A well written book for those in the grieving process. I personally found the book helpful.

"The Grieving Therapist" by Larisa A. Garski, LMFT and Justine Mastin, LMFT is a refreshing and necessary addition to the field of therapy. The book offers a grief-informed framework for therapists to take care of themselves while taking care of their clients amidst the difficulties of therapising in today's world.

The authors have done an excellent job of addressing the challenges that therapists face while working with clients who are experiencing grief, particularly during the stressors we al face. They have broken down 10 realms of grief that are critical to understand and work with today, but likely weren't taught to therapists in their training.

What sets this book apart is that the authors not only provide tools and skills for therapists to work with their clients but also offer advice on how to take care of themselves outside of the office. The book includes tips for supervisors and supervisees, support for current therapy students and therapists new to the field, and meditations on love, life, death, and connection.

The authors' use of humor, compassion, irreverence, and whimsy throughout the book makes it an engaging and enjoyable read. Additionally, the authors offer guidance on working with clients whose social or political beliefs differ from their own, therapeutic self-disclosure, countertransference, and how to sit with or step away from triggers in your work.

Overall, "The Grieving Therapist" is a must-read for any therapist who wants to take care of themselves while taking care of their clients. The book offers practical advice, tools, and skills that can be adapted for both clients and therapists. I highly recommend this book to therapists who want to practice good therapy in today's world.

I am not a therapist (I am a college professor) but I nonetheless found this book helpful, I think anyone in a helping profession can benefit from reading this book. It anchors itself in the pandemic world in ways that we can all learn from.

I'm so grateful for this book!

As a trainee therapist I felt heard, held, supported and comforted. I also learned a lot about some fields I know little about, and am keen to learn more (for example Internal Family Systems Theory and Narrative Therapy, both of which the authors are trained in).

The book is necessarily US-focused, as both authors are based there, and there's a lot of US-specific content around insurance, graduate school, licensing etc which does not map onto the UK therapy community. This isn't the core content, however, so I just let my eyes skim over those parts and focused on the deeper messages.

Threaded through the exploration of grief as a broad subject, there is so much gold in here about boundaries, self-disclosure, self care, politics in the therapeutic space, calling-in, individual and collective/systemic trauma, transference and countertransference. I think perhaps my school reading lists have numbed me to the potential for modern writing in this field which is nuanced, social justice aware (progressively!), accepts that the real world of therapy is not how we might have imagined or wished, AND invites us to grieve for that loss - while offering comfort and encouragement about the lives we are choosing.

I've recommended this to my colleagues, my school, my placement, my own therapist - everyone, basically.

My thanks to North Atlantic Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

Finally, a book bringing to light the collective trauma therapists and healers have been experiencing as we navigated, and helped others navigate, a global pandemic!

I appreciated Larisa Garski, LMFT, and Justine Mastin, LMFT, use of imagery, encouraging the reader to engage in playful imagination as they mindfully and non-judgmentally explore 10 realms of grief.

While I was not surprised by the 10 realms of grief, it was through this books guidance that I was finally able set aside the time to explore more deeply the impacts grief has had on me personally and professionally.

I appreciated the authors personal self disclosure, as well as, their teaching of helpful coping skills which aid the reader in navigating grief (I personally found the return-to-sender tool especially powerful). I was drawn to their use of Internal Family Systems (IFS), however, would have benefited from more guidance on facilitating conversations with other parts (especially for readers who may have limited to no IFS training/experience)

I know this book is going to be a gift to therapists and healer around the world as it will be crucial for us to process the impacts of the past three years.

I look forward to recommending it to my own healing community!

Thank you to the authors and publisher for an advanced digital copy of this book, via Netgalley.

As a disabled therapist who has struggled on both a personal and professional level throughout the pandemic and beyond I received The Grieving Therapist by Larisa A. Garski, LMFT and Jusinte Mastin, LMFT as a huge gift which has impacted positively on me and I know will subsequently benefit my clients and supervisees alike.

Self-care in the helping professions is often a challenge without the impact of a global pandemic but this text is so incredibly permissive and enabling in this domain. The honesty of both authors is truly refreshing and has enabled me to reflect deeply on how I function both inside and outside of the counselling room and more importantly on what I need to do, and am allowed to do, differently going forwards!

Wider issues around climate change and the implications on ourselves and those we work with are also beautifully addressed in a very accessible and helpful way. I also particularly enjoyed the section on how to manage issues where the people we work with hold fundamentally different values to ourselves. Obviously this isn't a new concept to deal with but contextualised in the current world crises and times of great change seems to offer something different and useful as we wade through our losses on a variety of different levels.

This is a book that provided me with a great deal of comfort and is one I will be recommending to others working in the helping professions without hesitation.

I am grateful to the authors, publishers and Net Galley for an ARC of this book and am leaving my honest review voluntarily.

As a therapist myself, I am so incredibly grateful that a book like The Grieving Therapist exists in the literary world. Larisa A. Garski, LMFT and Jusinte Mastin, LMFT manage to provide a guide for therapists, students, supervisors, and teachers alike that allows us to reflect on the impact of the pandemic on ourselves, our communities, the people we help, and the systems that impact us at large- most specifically, the mental health system itself.

As therapists, we have and continue to hold so much emotional turmoil and despair. As a result, it's so important to exercise good boundaries and self care so that we can separate what is ours from what anothers. Part of what The Grieving Therapist speaks about are the relational dynamics between therapist and client that the pandemic shifted. In many ways this made for deeper, clinical work and in other ways it made it difficult to set and maintain healthy boundaries between work and personal life. This had and continues to have broad implications for all clinicians that the authors encourage us to process, think about and sit with.

Both authors are also narrative therapists and I enjoyed how they provided a broader world view of the impact an ailing planet and a collapsing infrastructure in society has had and is currently having on our collective mental health and well-being. The authors both acknowledge their own grief alongside the readers. They speak to the truth that we are all still living inside the trauma we've endured as the pandemic is still happening and the after effects are still present.

The ten chapters in the text all deal with a realm of grief and provide guidance on identifying our feelings and then moving through them. Tools are also provided in each chapter that will help us make meaning out of our experiences. The authors remind us that as therapists we often want to avoid discussing the political but we cannot. The political impacts our clients as it does us. The political shows up in our sessions everyday whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. This book was a comfort to read and will prove to be a great support to mental health practitioners in the field, the students we supervise, and anyone in a helping profession who wants to remain grounded in doing this world during a time of immense change in our global society.

Thank you to the authors and publisher for the e-arc copy!