Bob Baugher

Bob Baugher, Ph.D., is a recently retired Psychology Professor from Highline College in Des Moines, Washington where he taught courses in Psychology and Death Education. As a trainer for LivingWorks he has trained more than 1,500 people in suicide intervention. He has given more than 900 workshops on grief and loss. In addition, he is the professional advisor to the South King County Chapter of The Compassionate Friends and the local widows’ organization: Widowed Information & Consultation Services. He earned a certificate in Thanatology from the Association for Death Education and Counseling. Bob has written more than 100 articles and seven books on the bereavement process. Visit his website at: http://www.bobbaugher.com. Dr. Baugher appeared on the radio show “Healing the Grieving Heart” with Dr. Gloria & Dr. Heidi Horsley to discuss Coping with Anger and Guilt After a Loss.

Articles:

Everyone Else is Carrying on with ‘Life as Usual’

This is an excerpt from the book: Coping with Grief: A Guide for the Bereaved Survivor by Bob Baugher. You can order it at: www.bobbaugher.com At this time in your life, the world looks different: Artificial Frightening Callous Indifferent Cold Insensitive Dreary Lonely Dull Uncaring You may find yourself surprised and hurt that, despite the fact that your life has totally changed, the rest of the world appears to operate just as it always has. Every day you see people going about their business as if nothing has changed. A common, but unexpressed feeling among bereaved people is […]

Trying to Make Sense of a Tragedy

You’ve heard it many times: News flash—A man was assaulted today. According to authorities, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just look at the word “wrong” used twice in the sentence, and you can definitely see that the poor fellow seemed to somehow be at fault. Why do we humans come up with reasons to blame the victim? A term from Psychology may give us some insight into this common human failing: The Just World Hypothesis (JWH). It goes like this: People believe that it is a just world—what goes around comes around—what ye’ sow ye’ […]

What I Learned from Reading 2,000 Deathbed Fantasies

It’s true. I’ve read a couple thousand submissions by people who wrote what it might feel like if they had 20 minutes to live: who they would want at their bedside, who would they not want there, what they would say to the entire group, what they would say to each individual, their future regrets and what they learned from the writing. I require students to create a 4-digit ID number that they will use for everything they submit in class. On the first day they write their name on one side of a blank 3 x 5 card and […]

He Talked about His Son and I Didn’t See a Tear

It’s interesting how human behavior can fool us. We look at someone and think, “OK, I’ve got her all figured out” and then she does something we would have never predicted. When I was younger and would meet someone who mentioned the death of their loved one, it never dawned on me that this individual could still be experiencing some form of grief. What I saw in front of me was a person who appeared to matter-of-factly state that their loved one died and I took it literally at face value. I mean, you can’t really blame me. For example, […]

How Long Should Grief Last?

A man whose wife of 35 years died 12 months ago does not suddenly walk out his front door today and say, “Okay, I’ve resolved that issue.” Parents whose 4-year-old daughter drowned in a swimming pool do not announce five years later, “We’ve accepted our daughter’s death. It’s okay.” Three weeks after the best friend of a 14-year-old is shot and killed at her high school, the teenager is not likely to say, “I’m healing.” Yet, while a growing number of researchers on loss and bereavement question the use of such words as “acceptance,” “healing,” “recovery,” and “closure,” the media […]

How to Use Death Insurance to Trick Death

It’s not a pleasant scene: You are in a hospital bed, clinging to life, and just outside your room your family members are arguing whether or not you would want to be kept alive by a respirator and, given the likelihood that you will die, would you want your organs donated. Or how about this unpleasant scene: hours after you die, your family members arrive at your home to begin searching through your belongings looking for all the papers they will need. They are saddened by your death. But, at the moment, they are frustrated that you had never told […]

My First Death

His name was Donald and I first met him when he was 9 and I was 12. His was the first Black family to move into our Seattle neighborhood back in the late 1950s. I remember a man and his wife who had recently moved to our neighborhood from Mississippi—a nice couple—or so I thought until they put up a Confederate flag in their living room window a couple days after Donald and his parents moved in. I remember Donald as a gentle, sometimes sickly boy who worked hard at fitting in with the neighborhood children. After a year, he […]

Coping With Guilt after a Loss

Dr. Bob Baugher is a psychologist and death education instructor at Highline Community College in Seattle, Washington. He’s featured on the Association for Death Education and Counseling’s (ADEC’s) webisode talking about the many ways you can cope with guilt following a loss. After several years of working with the bereaved and helping them address guilt, Dr. Baugher has come up with seven key ways to help. The first is to identify your guilt self-talk. If you say something or think it long enough, you can make it come to life. That’s true of guilt, and it’s common with the bereaved. […]

What We Expect of Men

As a bi-coastal radio show, Drs. Gloria and Heidi Horsley interview experts around the world. This episode features Dr. Bob Baugher, a psychology instructor at Highline Community College in Des Moines, Washington. He teaches courses in death education and psychology. He’s also a popular national speaker, and has written several articles and seven books on grief and bereavement. His most current project is a video, “Men & Their Grief; 20 Years Later,” where he follows men on their grief journey over a two decade period. People are more alike than they are different, says Dr. Baugher, and that’s true when […]

Life Isn’t Short, But Our Memories Are

You hear it all the time. “Life is short.” “Time goes by so fast.” “It seems only yesterday that ….” “How did I get this age?” “Where did the time go?’” Let’s look at this closely. First, because we sleep about one-third of the time, this leaves 67% of our life in a waking state. Okay, I know that some of you aren’t getting enough sleep, so you can subtract one-fourth, leaving 75%. Second, many of our daily behaviors are habits—rituals if you will—that we typically do without thinking and therefore do not get stored in our long-term memory. Let’s […]

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