GriefHaven Blog | Insights and Stories of Healing

September 4, 2020

Covid Depression

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have identified a set of modifiable factors from a field of over 100 that could represent valuable targets for preventing depression in adults. In a study published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, the team named social connection as the strongest protective factor for depression, and suggested that reducing sedentary activities such as TV watching and daytime napping could also help lower the risk of depression. "Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, but until now researchers have focused on only a handful of risk and protective factors, often in just one or two domains," says Karmel Choi, PhD, investigator in the Department of Psychiatry and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and lead author of the paper.

October 7, 2013

Grief Relief Talk Show

Episode 20: Finding Meaning After Loss Watch Susan Whitmore on Grief Relief talk show. She is halfway through the show. On this show, Dr. Gloria Horsley and Dr. Heidi Horsley explore the topic of finding meaning after loss. They interview two inspirational women who, rather than be broken by their experience, have used their tragic losses to make meaning and to help others. The first guest is Ann Khadalia, Social Worker and the second guest is Susan Whitmore founder and CEO of griefHaven. The show closes with a song, I Will Friend You, sung by singer-songwriter Michael Davis.

May 13, 2020

Multiple Losses In Succession “Now cut off from the world… Complicated Grief”

As a director of a bereavement center myself, I am very concerned about a friend. Her mother died about 4 years ago. Her father died about 8 months ago. Then, her son, as far as we know, died of an accidental overdose about one month after her father. The truth is it seems she never quite was able to adjust after the death of her mother. She was a devoted daughter to her parents. The following information comes to me by a mutual friend. Since her son's death she has become completely cut off from the world. She does not drive or leave the house. She is completely terrified of doing anything.

October 20, 2020

Greasing the Cookie Sheet

Greasing the cookie sheet,
First time in 18 months.
Each stain rife with memories
Where the butter or the chocolate
Baked on brown , now etched into the aluminum;
Like the most valuable print I could possess,

May 1, 2012

Educational Event – Mary Crest Manor

Susan Whitmore – Educational Event Mary Crest Manor – Culver City, CA – May 2012

November 8, 2017

Interview With Marylou Falstreau

Marylou Falstreau Interviewed by Susan Whitmore What inspires you to creat a particular card? Ultimately, every “Women and the Hourglass” image is a reflection of the place I am holding in my own life. The first creation in the series, “One day she woke up and discovered she’d grown wings,” was an acknowledgement of a turning point in my life. I had navigated my way through a pretty significant storm and was worthy of a medal, I believed. “Wings” seemed to be the most appropriate symbol at the time. The next in the series was “One day she woke up and decided to love herself more than she ever thought possible,” and I have since learned that everything good comes from making this powerful decision. Can you tell us a story or two about some images that are especially meaningful to you? Oh, there are so many. Actually, each one […]

May 24, 2020

PTSD – Not Recognized In Civilians

Federal laws explicitly addressing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have overwhelmingly focused on the needs of military personnel and veterans, according to a new analysis. The study is the first to examine how public policy has been used to address psychological trauma and PTSD in the US, providing a glimpse of how lawmakers think about these issues. Federal laws explicitly addressing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have overwhelmingly focused on the needs of military personnel and veterans, according to a new analysis published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress.

March 24, 2014

Watch griefHaven on Good Morning America

Susan discusses the TV show Resurrection, an American fantasy drama television series about dead people who return to life. It is based on Jason Mott’s novel The Returned (2013). The series follows the residents of Arcadia, Missouri, whose lives are upended when their loved ones return from the dead, not having aged since their deaths.

February 12, 2022

Forever Trying to Rescue You

I love you, Dad. Those are the last words you said to me the day before you killed yourself. They're also the last words you said to me in the first letter I wrote to you in this magazine, 24 years ago. Back then you were "Robbie" and I was "Daddy," and I never thought I could possibly love you more than I did. Then again, I never imagined I'd be writing this letter to you now.

March 29, 2021

Loneliness and Life Connected to Healthy Gut

The evolving science of wisdom rests on the idea that wisdom's defined traits correspond to distinct regions of the brain, and that greater wisdom translates into greater happiness and life satisfaction while being less wise results in opposite, negative consequences. Scientists have found in multiple studies that persons deemed to be wiser are less prone to feel lonely while those who are lonelier also tend to be less wise.

October 19, 2020

My Love Set Free

I’ll never forget the day that God sent you into my life,
The awesome way your smile seemed to make everything all right.

I’ll never forget the love you shared, unselfish and true,
I’ll never forget the special gift God bestowed on me in you.

As you stood before the Father, as your precious time had come,
With open arms he welcomed you, my child He said, "Well Done!"

April 1, 2021

Male and Female Brains – New Study Shows Very Little Differences

How different are men and women's brains? The question has been explored for decades, but a new study led by Rosalind Franklin University neuroscientist Lise Eliot is the first to coalesce this wide-ranging research into a single mega-synthesis. And the answer is: hardly at all. "Men and women's brains do differ slightly, but the key finding is that these distinctions are due to brain size, not sex or gender," Dr. Eliot said. "Sex differences in the brain are tiny and inconsistent, once individuals' head size is accounted for."