GOOD GRIEF

SENIOR DESIGN CAPSTONE, 2018 - 2019

Grief sucks. So does the way that we address it when most of what we know about grief is outdated or just incorrect and unhelpful. In the United States, talking about death is a major taboo. It’s hard to imagine what it’s like to experience grief when we haven’t gone through it and trying to tend to grief is awkward. This is a part of the massive catch-22 of supporting grief: the only people who know how to best support and understand grief are the people who are grieving. They might not have the mental capacity to teach someone about what they’re going through or how to make their lives easier, so they often just don’t. Grief education is often the last thing a person wants to spend their energy on.

Good Grief is a self-help book to guide you through what to do and what to say to someone you know who is grieving. By addressing young adults who have good intentions but little knowledge on what supporting someone effectively is, Good Grief bridges a gap in grief support that gets neglected by our cultural understanding of loss. Good Grief helps to build an understanding on the universality of grief by redefining what  grief is, when it happens, and who it happens to. By introducing people to better listening and thoughtful response skills, we can start to transform our bad relationship with grief into a better and healthier one.