Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief

Written by Joanne Cacciatore

Narrated by Joanne Cacciatore

Bearing the Unbearable is a Foreword INDIES Award-Winner — Gold Medal for Self-Help.

When a loved one dies, the pain of loss can feel unbearable—especially in the case of a traumatizing death that leaves us shouting, “NO!” with every fiber of our body. The process of grieving can feel wild and nonlinear—and often lasts for much longer than other people, the nonbereaved, tell us it should.

Organized into fifty-two short chapters, Bearing the Unbearable is a companion for life’s most difficult times, revealing how grief can open our hearts to connection, compassion, and the very essence of our shared humanity. Dr. Joanne Cacciatore—bereavement educator, researcher, Zen priest, and leading counselor in the field—accompanies us along the heartbreaking path of love, loss, and grief. Through moving stories of her encounters with grief over decades of supporting individuals, families, and communities—as well as her own experience with loss—Cacciatore opens a space to process, integrate, and deeply honor our grief.

Not just for the bereaved, Bearing the Unbearable will be required reading for grief counselors, therapists and social workers, clergy of all varieties, educators, academics, and medical professionals. Organized into fifty-two accessible and stand-alone chapters, this book is also perfect for being read aloud in support groups.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Release date: Apr 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9781614299592

Joanne Cacciatore

Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, author of Animal Sutras’ foreword, is the founder of the MISS Foundation and is currently a professor at Arizona State University. Her area of expertise is traumatic death, specifically child death, and she is an acclaimed public speaker on this topic. Dr. Cacciatore also specializes in counseling people affected by traumatic death and is a Diplomate in the American Psychotherapy Association. Her therapeutic interventions are presence-and-mindfulness-based, including narrative, dialectical, and logo therapies, in addition to trauma-focused therapies. Dr. Cacciatore is the author of the books Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief, and her memoir of losing her daughter, Dear Cheyenne: A Journey into Grief, which is considered the leading book for bereaved parents, which is now in its sixth edition.