Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-281) and index.

The Anatomy of Grief is about what happens to the human self after the death of a loved one. Over two-and-a-half million people in this country die each year and over fifty-five million worldwide. Their survivors become the bereaved. The book describes the effects of grief: on the brain-how thinking is affected; the heart-its emotional anguish; and the body-how tears continue to flow, and how sleep and appetite change. The aim is to make what is happening to the grief-stricken less frightening by giving them an understanding of the humanness of their grief. Grief is universal. To ignore it, to deny it doesn't matter; grief happens to everyone. A loved one dies and leaves an empty space in the bereaved that fills with grief. This book describes the importance of talking about grief, how putting grief into words restructures the brain. And it tells the reader that allowing the self to feel grief's sadness, to endure its anguish, and to put this powerful emotion into words are ways that help grief to quiet and the brain to change. This book puts grief in the context of evolution and human history; it describes the different forms of grief; and how grievers come to learn words that belong to the language of grief. It depicts what grief is like after a mother, father or a child dies, and after the death of a sibling, spouse, or partner. It cites research from neuroscience, psychology, medicine and other disciplines. And it uses examples from literature, music, poetry and the arts, paleoarcheology and paleontology, personal and other memoirs, and patient narratives to illustrate the collective experience of grief. Alchemy is used as a metaphor in the last chapter to describe how grief can be transformed into joy. It explains how grief can alchemize from a leaden sadness into memories, bitter yet loving and sweet, that burnish grief into gold. The target audience for the book is the bereaved and the general public.