In "Companioning the Bereaved: a Soulful Guide for Caregivers," Wolfelt briefly mentioned that the concept of "gardening" better describes the process of assisting mourners than the idea of diagnosing/assessing/treating. Wolfelt is very eager to point out that we should not "treat" grief as a disease. But he's less clear about what we *should* do. He doesn't define "gardening," and, in fact, never mentions the idea again in the book.
Gardening is a complicated process; much more complicated than simply sticking the seeds in the ground and watering them. You need to plan for your particular climate, and for the immediate weather, and possibly long-term over the next two to three months. You need to consider soil conditions, structure, and nutrients. You need to consider the availability of water, and plan to water at the appropriate time, and for appropriate periods.
Wolfelt's guide (well, all of his guides) stresses holistic involvement, and the soul, which seems to be just another word for holistic. He desperately avoids any kind of structure, process, or direct advice. You are to be kind, and listen, which is great, as far as it goes. It wouldn't get very far in gardening. You do have to be holistic, in terms of considering the entire environment in which you are planting and growing, but you have to consider a lot of things in detail. Wolfelt does not do detail.
You do have to let the seeds tell you what they need. However, in gardening, if you have provided the wrong thing, you pull the shoots up and throw them away and plant again with different crops. You can't do that with the bereaved.
You need to learn a lot when you are gardening. There are other people who have been at this longer than you, and have learned the tricks of the trade. Many of them would state that they are not expert. I assume that Master gardeners, who have gained the certification, if they are honest, would say the same thing.
It doesn't matter which of Wolfelt's books you read; "The Journey Through Grief," "The Understanding Your Grief Journal," "Understanding Your Grief," "Companioning the Bereaved," or any of his other, yearly, books; they all contain the same content. Basically this boils down to listening to the mourning and taking a holistic approach.
If you think that I am exaggerating, I give you an assessment of a list of twenty principles, for companioning the bereaved, from the book "Companioning the Bereaved." Of the twenty principles, two of them basically point out that there is no point in trying to bring the person back to normal, one says that you should take a spiritual approach, and five of the principles essentially are that you should take a holistic approach, one says that you should create conditions for healing, and one points out that you should take care of yourself. *Eleven* of the twenty principles essentially say that you should listen to the mourner. This is even more pronounced when he gets into his tenets of companioning the bereaved. (I don't know what the difference is between a principle and a tenet in Wolfelt's mind.) Of the eleven tenets, one says that you should take a spiritual approach. The other ten tenets essentially say that you should listen to the mourner.
Wolfelt does not define spirit, or soul, or walk alongside, terms that he uses frequently. He leaves all of these, and many more suggestions, completely undefined. His lack of definition of them does use an awful lot of words to not say anything in particular. The only terms that he does define are those he disagrees with, and, in those cases, his objections are to straw man type principles and practices which very few people would use in the way that he is attacking them.
This is not to say that Wolfelt's books are completely useless. The advice to listen to mourners is good advice. The statement that grief is not a condition which needs to be treated, or diagnosed, or assessed, is likewise good advice. And, in all the books, there is definitely material about grief which is useful to present to the mourner. It's just that the advice, while it may be reordered, restructured, or sometimes reworded, is always the same, and that the advice to be holistic, and to listen, is also always the same. It does not matter which of Wolfelt's books you read, you get the same benefit from any of them. So, if I could recommend one, I would just say, pick the shortest one.
Wolfelt's statement that grief is not a condition to be treated, via Western standard medical types of approaches, is somewhat betrayed by his proposal for what he tends to term reconciliation. Reconciliation, when you do examine what he is suggesting, sounds an awful lot like treatment for grief. It is the reduction of extreme grief and emotion, and the reconciliation of the fact of the absence of the loved one with in the current life situation. So, it sounds like Wolfelt does have a treatment: the treatment is reconciliation.
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