The Grief Recovery Method Is Evidence-Based

July 14, 2019 by Laurie One of the most frequent questions asked at The Grief Recovery Institute, by those who are professionally involved in therapeutic practice, is whether there are any studies that show that The Grief Recovery Method is effective.

In the past, we could talk about the anecdotal stories shared with us by those grievers who have been positively impacted by this program.

After almost 40 years of working with the grieving community, we certainly have heard thousands of stories from those we help. Now there is actually a university study that supports the value of this program as well.

Dr. Rachael D. Nolan and Dr. Jeffery R. Hallam, from Kent State University, recently published the initial findings of their ongoing studies in The American Journal of Health Education. Their findings show that The Grief Recovery Method is an evidence-based process for effectively assisting grievers in dealing with personal emotional loss, no matter the cause. This finding is significant, since there is no other internationally available support group format that has been the subject of such a study and found to be evidence-based. Better still, this format is designed to be effective in just eight working sessions with grievers.

Whether the pain of grief is a result of a death or any other significant emotional loss, this approach is still effective. There have been many people in the therapeutic community who have employed The Grief Recovery Method as an effective tool in their work.

These therapists chose to consider Certification Training in this approach to working with grievers either after a personal loss that they individually experienced, or after looking into this program on their own. Up until the study by Drs. Nolan and Hallam, there had been no independent university study of the value of any such grief assistance community-based programs.

The Kent State research is the first such published study on this subject. This study is based on the eight-meeting support group format for Grief Recovery created by The Grief Recovery Institute. For those who prefer to work with clients in a one-on-one setting, these same materials have also been developed into a seven-meeting format for that purpose.