Genevieve takes a new approach to grief therapy, where they don’t share their bereavement story right away. How do you think your reaction to each character would have been different if you had known the specifics of their loss first?
As a retired professional mental health therapist I did not find her approach to grief therapy to be new. It wouldn’t have changed anything for me if I had known the specifics of their loss first.
I think it helped to get a small bit of background about each other.
I’m not familiar with counseling for grief therapy and am wondering if you could elaborate on which part wasn’t new: small group therapy with members pre-selected and/or starting with a happy memory. And as a retired mental health therapist, knowing at the end that Genevieve did know each character’s specific loss, would you have done anything differently such as starting with a different group question to break the ice.
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None of the therapy techniques she used were new. The question Geneieve used to break the ice seemed fine to me. Thank you for asking.
It wouldn’t have changed my perception of them if I had known the specifics of their grief first.
I believe that learning about the characters before finding out what their loss was made them more real. If the author had lead with Callum’s accident I wouldn’t have found him a very sympathetic character.
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No and actually I’m glad they didn’t share their stories right away. The book was interesting and keep you guessing about their grief. Also, you understood the characters better, when they finally did reveal the reason for their grief
I am not familiar with grief therapy approaches in general. So I can’t comment on that part of the question. I can, however, comment on my reaction to each character, if the specifics had been first. I think I got a better understanding of each character by not knowing the specifics of their loss up front. It made them more interesting and believable.