Multidimensional Grief Therapy (MGT) provides counselors, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists (as well as students in these fields) with a flexible program for assessing and supporting children and adolescents who have experienced bereavement. MGT is a strength-based intervention, designed to reduce unhelpful grief reactions that prevent adjustment, and promote adaptive grief reactions that enable children to cope better after a death. It also reduces associated symptoms of psychological distress and helps bereaved children and adolescents lead healthy, happy, productive lives. As young people grieve in different ways and “one-size-fits-all” treatments often lack effectiveness, MGT uses an assessment-driven, two-phased approach to effectively address the unique mental health needs of diverse youth. This manual provides a wealth of activities and handouts designed specifically to engage and empower youth after experiencing a death, including under traumatic circumstances.

‘This is a remarkably cogent volume on an assessment and treatment of childhood grief - developed after decades of clinical experience and empirical confirmation by a team of respected authors who recognize that ‘one-size-fits-all’ grief treatments lack effectiveness. Emphasizing that childhood grief occurs on a continuum, the volume’s structure follows two phases. First is a detailed assessment of grief distress responses (separation distress, existential/identity distress and circumstance-related distress), a clarification of developmental vulnerabilities and resilience with reinforcement of psychoeducation and stabilization exercises that can be offered by non-clinicians. This is particularly relevant for bereavement support workers, faith-based personnel or school counselors. Phase two is a protocol for clinicians when grief distress is clearly maladaptive through a detailed series of fully described exercises of therapy, featuring extensive literature references, lists of grief/trauma measures, graphic narratives and writing exercises for the professional clinician.’

Ted Rynearson - M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Washington

‘Most clinicians are never trained to work with grieving children and teens despite how often this trauma causes youth to seek therapy. Multidimensional Grief Therapy fills this gap by providing everything a clinician needs to implement this easy to use and developmentally appropriate evidence-based therapy. The authors have incorporated years of research and work with grieving children into this text which provides helpful handouts, a range of suggested assessment tools for each session and direct practical advice for working with bereaved children and their caregivers who are often grieving themselves.’

Julie Cerel - Ph.D., Professor, Licensed Psychologist, University of Kentucky, College of Social Work, Director, Suicide Prevention & Exposure Lab (SPEL), Wilson Professor in Mental Health

‘Multidimensional Grief Therapy provides a remarkable integration of a theoretical model of grief with measures and intervention strategies that are tailored to identify and treat the unique needs of different bereaved children. The book provides an impressive review of the scientific foundations of their approach. The approach provides guidance for clinicians to support adaptive grieving processes and to identify and treat maladaptive processes. The manual in the book provides step by step exercises clinicians can use to guide their practice, with each exercise nicely tied to the underlying theory of distinct dimensions of children’s grief. The authors are distinguished scholars who have made significant contributions to our scientific understanding of children’s grief. In this book they have brought all of their scientific research together to provide clinicians with a uniquely comprehensive model they can use to support bereaved youth.’

Irwin Sandler - Research Professor (FSC), ASU Psychology REACH, Emeritus Professor, Emeritus College, Arizona State University