#19 The Good Grief Project
By taking an active and creative response to the loss of their son Josh, Jane Harris and husband Jimmy Edmonds have developed fantastic resources for all bereaved parents. Jane joins us on this episode to talk about -amongst other things - the wonderful film A Love That Never Dies, the book When Words are not Enough, and their hugely popular active grief retreats.
This episode is dedicated to Josh.
Jane Harris is a psychotherapist and bereavement specialist with over 30 years of experience in the NHS and private practice. She is also a grief educator, supervisor and public speaker, regularly appearing in podcasts and radio.
Her partner Jimmy Edmonds is a photographer and documentary film editor with over 100 TV credits. He is also a Winston Churchill Fellow and BAFTA award-winning filmmaker with several critically-acclaimed documentaries to his name, including Chosen for Channel 4 and Breaking the Silence for BBC1.
After the death of their son at the age of 22 in 2011, they created The Good Grief Project www.thegoodgriefproject.co.uk a charity dedicated to a proactive approach to grief. Using ideas that flow from the concept of ‘continuing bonds’, as opposed to society’s expectation of detachment from the deceased, they developed their Active Grief programme, comprising a series of residential retreats and workshops. Here, bereaved parents and siblings are helped to discover new and imaginative ways of expressing their grief, through creative writing, photography, boxing and fitness training.
Grief is energy, they say, and their own skills have enabled them to make a number of significant films, including the award-winning A Love That Never Dies, Gerry’s Legacy, Beyond Goodbye, Say Their Name, and Beyond the Mask.
Their films, workshops and retreats speak to a new appreciation of what it means to grieve in a society that often has difficulty talking openly about death, dying and bereavement.
Their latest book, When Words Are Not Enough: Creative Responses to Grief is available worldwide.
https://www.quickthornbooks.com/title-list/when-words-are-not-enough/
“The word I keep coming back to with this book is beautiful, not a word I would usually associate with grief. But this book is rich in detail and compassion, it is authoritative and kind. Jane and Jimmy have done an extraordinary thing, through their immense loss and pain they have chosen to redefine grief as love turned inside out and walk alongside the bereaved. They make grief less scary. I have not read a better book on grief.” Annalisa Barbiere – THE GUARDIAN
Resources:
Please visit The Good Grief Project to learn more about Jane and Jimmy’s work, including the film A Love That Never Dies and the book When Words Are Not Enough.
This link takes you directly to their Active Grief Retreats and you can find out about Grief Fit too.
The July Three Peaks Challenge that Jane mentioned is on the Events page.
The Compassionate Friends can be contacted here. The Helpline is 0345 123 2304.
The Grieving Brain by Mary-Frances O’ Connor.
UK