Published in 2018
272pages
Claire Bidwell Smith lives in Los Angeles. She is the author of the books The Rules of Inheritance (2012), and After This (2015). Claire works in private practice as a therapist specializing in grief.
Claire received a BA in creative writing from The New School and a MA in clinical psychology from Antioch University. She has written for many publications including The Huffington Post, Salon.com, Slate, BlackBook Magazine and Chicago Public Radio. Her background includes travel and food writing, working for nonprofits like Dave Eggers’ literacy center 826LA, and bereavement counseling for hospice.
What is this book about?
A groundbreaking book exploring the little-known yet critical connections between anxiety and grief, with practical strategies for healing that follow the renowned Kübler-Ross stages model.
If you’re suffering form anxiety but not sure why, or if you’re struggling with loss and looking for solace, Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief offers help — and answers. Significant loss and unresolved grief are primary underpinnings of anxiety, something that grief expert Claire Bidwell Smith discovered in her own life and in her practice with her therapy clients.
Now, using research and real life stories, Smith breaks down the physiology of anxiety, giving you a concrete foundation of understanding in order to help you heal. Starting with the basics of What Is Anxiety? and What Is Grief? and moving to concrete approaches such as Making Amends, Taking Charge, and Retraining Your Brain, Anxiety takes a big step beyond Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s widely accepted five stages to unpack everything from our age-old fears about mortality to the bare vulnerability a loss can make us feel.
With concrete tools and coping strategies for panic attacks, getting a handle on anxious thoughts, and more, Smith bridges these two emotions in a way that is deeply empathetic and eminently practical.
