Winner, ICQI 2022 Outstanding Qualitative Book Award
In Writing the Self in Bereavement: A Story of Love, Spousal Loss, and
Resilience, Reinekke Lengelle uses her abilities as a researcher, poet,
and professor of therapeutic writing to tell a heartfelt and fearless
story about her grief after the death of her spouse and the year and a
half following his diagnosis, illness, and passing.
This book powerfully demonstrates that writing can be a companion in
bereavement. It uses and explains the latest research on coming to terms
with spousal loss without being prescriptive. Integrated with this
contemporary research are stories, poetry, and reflections on writing as
a therapeutic process. The author unflinchingly explores a number of
themes that are underrepresented in existing resources: how one deals
with anger associated with loss, what a healthy response might be to
unfinished business with the deceased, continuing conversations with the
beloved (even for agnostics and atheists), ongoing sexual desire, and
secondary losses.
As a rare book where an author successfully combines a personal story,
heart-rending poetry, up-to-date research on grief, and an evocative
exploration of taboo topics in the context of widowhood, Writing the
Self in Bereavement is uniquely valuable for those grieving a spouse or
other loved one, those supporting others in bereavement, and those
interested in the healing power of poetry and life writing. Researchers
on death and dying, grief counsellors, and autoethnographers will also
benefit from reading this resonant resource on love and loss.
