At the annual ADEC (Association of Death Education and Counseling), I spoke with Dr. William (Bill) Buckley about how people can cope with a loss in a different manner if they do not feel like they coped well with a previous loss.

Many families have already gone through a loss, and with that loss they carry a range of bad feelings about the experience they went through.

In anticipation of future losses, Bill explains that families want to know how they can do better. Hear his advice in the video below.

Here are some key takeaways from the video:

• Many people have memories of past losses that lead them to feel shame, guilt, disappointment, and/or anger. As a result, these people say to themselves: “I want to do the next loss differently.”
• Some of the things that they can do to make the next loss go differently involve things like anticipating depression, anticipating the burden that will be placed on caregivers, anticipating how to manage pain better, and so on.
• Bill says there is a lot of data showing people have negative feelings towards a previous loss, as well as a lot of data to show how these people can be helped when going through their next loss.
• Bill recently published a book that looks at this data and offers suggestions. The book is called “Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Death and Dying.”
• The book raises 18 pro and con questions, such as: “Does depression make end of life decisions untrustworthy?”
• Bill’s book can be purchased here on Amazon.com.

For more video interviews, please see the Open To Hope YouTube channel.