The Grieving Brain

The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss

By: Mary-Frances O'Connor

Narrated by: Callie Beaulieu

Length: 8 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's Summary

NPR SciFri Book Club Pick

Next Big Idea Club's "Top 21 Psychology Books of 2022"

Behavioral Scientist Notable Books of 2022

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.

In The Grieving 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 without them.

The Grieving Brain addresses:

• Why it’s so hard to understand that a loved one has died and is gone forever
• Why grief causes so many emotions—sadness, anger, blame, guilt, and yearning
• Why grieving takes so long
• The distinction between grief and prolonged grief
• Why we ruminate so much after we lose a loved one
• How we go about restoring a meaningful life while grieving

Based on O’Connor’s own trailblazing neuroimaging work, research in the field, and her real-life stories, The Grieving Brain combines 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.

©2022 by O’Connor Productions, Inc. (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

Interesting thoughts

I was very interested in learning about my grieving brain.. I have lost a brother to suicide, both my parents and both my sons, only children. I also had another loss, of a marriage after 20 years. So a long life of grieving since I was 10. I was sad that Dr. O'Connor, as a grief specialist, hardly touched on child loss. Although they were both in their late 30's, they were my children, my only ones. I can say even after my other losses, the losses of my children was the most devastating. Even after 9 and a half years, I still feel devastated. Complicated grief for sure. I would have been interested in how I go on with this loss. I'm 71. So if you lost a parent or both, or a spouse, I think this book would be of help. Child loss is so different, especially when it was one's only child or only children.

3rd Edit Review, back down to 1 star.

3rd listen. Not easy. If I wade through long stretches of scientific fact/theory and hypotheticals, make it to a brief real-world but seemingly superficial example of an exercise, I my Grieving brain says “yeah, I can see that.” But it’s a real chore.

I have no doubt that a retreat helped executives recover from grief and get back on track after losing their jobs. In the real world, I have no doubt that the author’s experience learning to appreciate flowers helped them with their own grief, which at this moment my exhausted grieving brain recalls as maybe being the result of losing their husband? Or their cat? Regardless, if the author spent any time talking ABOUT their lost loved one, then I would have been provided with something I could grab on to.

About this book I will say that if your life is crushed from the heart, gut and mind crunching type grief of losing loved one, my grieving opinion is that listening to hours of this scientific chatter (which this book is all about) may not help you in the least. In fact, it may leave you frustrated and aggravated.

So I’m adjusting my rating of this book back down to one star. Essentially it is an Ivy league-level dissertation, citing Ivy League studies, a few briefly described examples (both real and hypothetical) in a narrowly focused form about what (I guess) goes on in our brains when we are suffering grief. I thought maybe that perspective would be interesting to me, and maybe it would be, but not in the way it’s presented in this book.

Absolutely awesome

This is not a self help book, not an entertaining story . This book is awesome if you know grief personally but you want to understand what’s happening to you: I absolutely loved this book. It gave me understanding and hope.

Boring!

Nothing helpful. Very acedemic, Nothing surprising at all either. Such an important subject, too bad this was so disapointing.

Open to Hope Foundation

We have been in the grief and loss business for over 30 years. It’s seldom that We Find such a wealth of information in one place in the area of a grief, loss and recovery. This book is filled with new information and ideas on the grieving brain. We have learned things that we have never thought possible to learn in a new venue. We have lost a child/siblings and a spouse/dad and thank you so much for the new ideas and information in this book and in this area. You’ve done a wonderful job of bringing scientific knowledge to the lay reader and listener. Congratulations on this great accomplishment. Dr. Gloria Horsley and Dr. Heidi Horsley

Compelling and full of interesting perspectives

This is a really enjoyable read for a very broad audience. It's science forward without being inaccessible. The book and ideas are very approachable because of the effortless involvement of humor and personal vignettes. A surprising amount of areas are covered and woven into the narrative, which all seem well integrated and add to a nice comprehensive picture. I was deeply touched at times, and that worked extremely well in combination with being challenged in my understanding. It leaves enough room to ask a lot of important questions. thanks for writing this!

Simply brilliant

Having experience intense grief in my 20’s - first the loss of a best friend and second the sudden loss of my first husband - through to the grief I am experiencing now at 50 for the sudden loss of my mother - this book is so enlightening. It has helped me understand the process my younger self went through and why the process of grieving my mother - while intensely painful at times, feels different. I cannot rate this book highly enough. Our brains are indeed marvellous ‘machines’.

very thoughtful

very insightful and well thought-out. the last few paragraphs about her mother brought me right back to my mom's death. 😭 touching and relatable way to end the book. Definitely a good read.

Helpful content

The content was great. The readers voice had a robotic quality to it which wasn’t preferred.

I’ll be re-reading this book again

This is definitely what I would consider a “self-help” book. I must admit, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started listening. It was difficult to stay attentive, but that’s because it’s not a novel or story of any kind. The Grieving Brain is more an explanation of what happens when during grief and grieving.

I’m glad I found this book. Every year around the anniversaries of my fathers passing, I experience sever depression. I plan to re-read this book to remind me of how my brain is processing the loss of my father. Hopefully it will help break the cycle.

Useful information, but irritating narration

Very useful information which I will use in counselling work. However the narration is rather irritating. It sounds like book has been read by a robot. If Siri read a book, that’s what it would sound like. I only put up with it because of the valuable information.

Great

brilliantly explored pushing into the latest understandings about grief and the meaning it has for us all

Helpful and compassionate

Wide ranging and comprehensive, compassionate and genuine. Also reliable and scientific, but presented so a layperson could understand.

very very helpful. Intelligent and positive

wether you have experienced loss or are just interested in the topic this is really a top read. Helpful, intelligent and kind in equal measure. We will all encounter loss of a loved one and grief. This book has helped me understand what is happening to me scientifically and provided a thoughful and properly investigated toolkit to navigate the new terrain.
I would encourage reading the book not listening to audible as the reading voice and tempo are the only subpar aspect of the book - if you listed to it i found it helpful to do so at 1.2x as for me it 'normalised' the reading voice and tempo.

very useful

book is excellent. had to speed up to 1.25x for narration to be more normal

Highly recommended

I wish I'd found this book early on after the death of my partner instead of having to wade through all the useless mush and twaddle that is sadly so prolific ( avoid anything that mentions the 5 stages of grief !). It put things very much in perspective and made my grief suddenly a lot easier to bear. Can't recommend it enough. I did speed it up as the readers voice was too dreary otherwise.

Great book - from a Grief Therapist

I have consumed pretty much every book available on grief and for the first time in a long time, I learned new information in this wonderfully presented book. I had to listen multiple times in several parts, to fully grasp what was being said.
At first I found the robotic reading very grating, but I soon got used to it and was able to listen beyond that to the material itself. Pity it wasn’t read by the author! Nonetheless, I do highly recommend this book which I am about to listen to again!

Great books and lots of new learning

After loosing my grandmother who brought me up and was a mother to me I have ready many books on grief however this book made a lot of practical sense and easy to understand. I would highly recommend for those who want to understand their grief much better. All the best and hope you all find strength