Book Review: The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O'Connor, PhD

Summary:

In this episode of Growth from Grief, host Susan Andersen reviews key  insights from the book 'The Grieving Brain' by Mary Frances O'Connor.   In the book Dr O'Connor explores the neuroscience behind grief, highlighting the importance of understanding how our brains process loss and the practical applications of these insights in supporting those who are grieving.  Sue explores how this book has impacted her own healing and how she incorporates this information into her work with students.

Takeaways

• Grief is an overwhelming wave, while grieving is how it evolves over time.
• The brain expects our loved ones to return, creating a conflict in understanding loss.
• Grief can trap us in regret, but healing begins in the present moment.
• Returning to the present helps us integrate our loss and emotions.
• Love shapes our brain, and our loved ones remain part of our mental wiring.
• Grief doesn't disappear; we learn to live with it over time.
• Understanding the science of grief can provide comfort and insight.

Thank you for listening! Visit www.sueandersenyoga.com for Yoga for Grief classes and additional resources.

Transcript

Susan Andersen (00:01.976)
Hi and welcome to this episode of Growth from Grief. I am your host Sue Andersen and I'm so glad you're here. If you're a returning listener, thank you for coming back. If you're new, welcome. I hope this podcast brings you comfort and some new ideas or tools to support you on your grief path.

Today, I want to talk about a book that has had a profound impact on me. It's called The Grieving Brain by Mary Frances O'Connor. But before I dive into it, let me just share a little bit about why this topic matters to me. 

So over the past few years, I've found myself drawn to books and research that explore grief from a clinical or a scientific perspective. You know, I wanted to understand or have a better understanding of what's actually happening in our bodies and our minds, not just from my own experience or others experience, personal experience of grief, but through the lens of science. 

And what I had heard about in terms of research, and maybe this is the same for you, is the five stages of grief by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. And, you know, those five stages, which are referenced a lot, were originally intended to describe the experience of people facing terminal illness, not necessarily for people that are grieving a loss. But they've become deeply ingrained in our culture to the point where a person who's experienced loss might be worried because they're not at a particular stage of grief. 

Susan Andersen (02:22.762)
They haven't experienced anger or depression or now they're experiencing anger again, but aren't they supposed to be feeling acceptance? And, you know, so so it's just been ingrained in our culture, but is is not really applicable to people who are grieving.

But we've all heard comments about things like, it's been three months. Are you in a different stage? You must be feeling better. I can't believe you don't want to come dancing. Whatever it might be. People, I think, are generally well-meaning. But these kinds of comments are really misguided and the people who are giving you this advice or these remarks or comments either haven't experienced deep grief or maybe they just haven't processed their own grief. So I wanted to understand a little bit more about grief and you know scientific research. 

So I've been doing reading over the last three or four years. And this book that I picked up recently is called, you know, The Grieving Brain. And it's really truly a fascinating book, at least it was fascinating to me, written in, you know, language that you and I can understand. I am not a doctor, scientist, clinician, you know, don't have that kind of degree. Sometimes when you're just looking at other research, you have to sift through language that you might not understand. But this book, I would say uses a lot of really easy to comprehend terms and explanations. 

Susan Andersen (04:43.182)
So we can really understand more about the concept, the principle, scientific principles. So Dr. Mary Frances O'Connor is a neuroscientist and a grief researcher. And in this book, she explores how the brain processes grief, not just emotionally, but biologically.

So that's really, again, that was really interesting to me because I've spent a lot of time about how grief is in the body and how movement can help us release it, how grief can be stuck in our chest and the emotions can be stuck in our chest where we're not breathing deeply. Emotions can affect our mental well-being, spiritual well-being, but I really didn't understand what was going on from a biological standpoint.