The Grieving Brain

NPR SciFri Book Club Pick

Next Big Idea Club’s “Top 21 Psychology Books of 2022”

Behavioral Scientist Notable Books of 2022

A renowned grief expert and neuroscientist shares groundbreaking discoveries about what happens in our brain when we grieve, providing a new paradigm for understanding love, loss, and learning.

In The Grieving Brain, neuroscientist and psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD, gives us a fascinating new window into one of the hallmark experiences of being human. O’Connor has devoted decades to researching the effects of grief on the brain, and in this book, she makes cutting-edge neuroscience accessible through her contagious enthusiasm, and guides us through how we encode love and grief. With love, our neurons help us form attachments to others; but, with loss, our brain must come to terms with where our loved ones went, or how to imagine a future without them. 

The Grieving Brain addresses:

Why it’s so hard to understand that a loved one has died and is gone forever
Why grief causes so many emotions—sadness, anger, blame, guilt, and yearning
Why grieving takes so long
The distinction between grief and prolonged grief
Why we ruminate so much after we lose a loved one
How we go about restoring a meaningful life while grieving

Based on O’Connor’s own trailblazing neuroimaging work, research in the field, and her real-life stories, The Grieving Brain combines storytelling, accessible science, and practical knowledge that will help us better understand what happens when we grieve and how to navigate loss with more ease and grace. 

Author Biography

MARY-FRANCES O’CONNOR, PhD is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, where she directs the Grief, Loss and Social Stress (GLASS) Lab, which investigates the effects of grief on the brain and the body. O’Connor received her BA in psychology from Northwestern University in 1996, and went on to earn a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Arizona in 2004. She completed clinical training at the formerly named UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital and has worked in clinical settings from Arizona State Prison to the Revlon UCLA Breast Center. Soon after, she completed a post-doctoral fellowship in psychoneuroimmunology at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. She then joined the faculty at UCLA before moving to the psychology department at the University of Arizona in 2012. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.