[Editor: In anticipation of today’s AfterTalk BlogTalk Radio program featuring Dr. David Fajgenbaum and his colleague Dr. Heather Servaty-Seib, we are reprinting their two-part article on supporting grieving college students. You can listen to the initial broadcast at 3pm today, November 18. at AfterTalkLIVE on BlogTalk Radio or later in the archive. To listen, click this link:
Between 35% and 48% of college students have lost a family member or close friend within the last two years. Grieving college students can often feel isolated and vulnerable, and may feel that no one else ‘gets’ what they are going through. In the second part of this two-part post, co-author of We Get It, Heather Servaty-Seib talks about the book and how it can be used as a tool to support grieving college students.
We Get It is the product of the power and compassion of 33 resilient grieving young adults who took the risk in sharing their stories with others. As the authors/editors, David and I were honored to receive their stories and to organize them in a way that we thought would be most useful and helpful to others. As David noted in the prior blog entry, our primary audience of focus is grieving college students and young adults. We want them to know, through reading these stories, that they are definitely not alone and that in many cases they will find their own thoughts and concerns in print in the narratives of their grieving peers.
As someone passionate about supporting grieving individuals, and who dedicates the majority of her academic and clinical efforts to
encouraging and empowering young people in their grief journeys, I have always wanted to assemble a resource for grieving college students. But, over time, I realized that grieving college students did not want or need a book that I, as a counseling psychologist and professor, would write for them! Rather, what students and young adults need is to hear the stories of their peers and to know that they are not the only ones who feel/felt torn, lost, transformed, newly determined about life, etc. I believe this book will make a true difference, and I am proud of David and every single young adult who contributed to this volume.
In addition to reaching out to grieving individuals, this book was also written to offer guidance to those who want to support grieving college students and young adults, including family members, friends, counselors, professors, or university staff members. Reading the stories included here can provide helpful insights into the unique and dynamic nature of grief. If you are someone who is seeking to be a supportive presence in the life of a grieving young adult, we hope you will consider reading our book and that you will leave wiser and better able to acknowledge, normalize, and facilitate the grief of these young adults.
David and I want to express our sincere appreciation to supportive others who decide to read We Get It. You have taken a significant step in making a difference in improving the experience of grief for young adults. By reading the narratives in this book and considering the reflection questions, we hope that you will be able to offer the high quality support that you wish to provide. We know it will mean a great deal to the grieving college students and/or young adults they seek to support.
In the final chapter of the book, we actually provide a list of suggestions for those who seek to offer support to grieving college students and young adults (e.g., non-grieving peers, parents, counselors). We separated the chapter into general tips for supporters and a few additional specific tips for parents, non-grieving peers, counselors, college personnel and professors, and support group leaders. We provide a brief description of each suggestion followed by quotes from the authors to help illustrate the “lived” experience of each of these ideas. These suggestions are tips that grieving students themselves have offered. Some of these suggestions were reported by many, whereas others were only noted by a few. We encourage you to view these ideas as possibilities and be sure to personally evaluate how well each may or may not fit for you.
Again, although our primary focus is on getting We Get It into the hands of grieving college students and adults, we definitely believe that the book can offer real and practical guidance to family members, friends, counselors, professors, or university staff members. You will truly be amazed by the candor, depth of insight, and eloquence of the 33 young adults who share their stories in We Get It.
[Editor: to order We Get It from the AfterTalk Bookstore, click the picture above.]
Heather L. Servaty-Seib, Ph.D., is a counseling psychologist. She is currently a professor in the Counseling Psychology Doctoral 
Program in the Department of Educational Studies at Purdue University, US. Dr. Servaty-Seib also maintains a small, grief-focused private practice. She is well-published in the areas of adolescent and young adult grief, social support and grief, and she is a past president of the Association for Death Education and Counseling. Much of her recent scholarship has been focused in the area of student bereavement, with articles published in both The Counselling Psychologist and Death Studies. Dr. Servaty-Seib was heavily involved in implementing a bereavement leave policy for students at Purdue University, an effort which has set a precedent for other campuses. She lives in Lafayette, IN.
