Select Foundational Sources

Select Foundational Sources on the Science of Grieving. For the layperson, an essential guide to this new science is found in The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss (2022) and also The Grieving Body: How the Stress of Loss Can Be an Opportunity for Healing (2025), both by Mary-Frances O’Connor, a leading scientist in the space. 

For the science that supports what you’ll read in this chapter about the physiology of grief, the key papers to look for include this one by Mary-Frances O’Connor, “Grief: A Brief History of Research on How Body, Mind, and Brain Adapt” (O’Connor, 2019); this review of grief’s physiological effects, “The Psychobiology of Bereavement and Health: A Conceptual Review From the Perspective of Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression” (Seiler et al, 2020); and this review of how grief affects the brain: “Grief and bereavement: A pre-registered systematic review of neuroimaging studies (Evstigneev, O’Connor et al, 2025)

Also worth noting: This key single study on how grief affects the brain: “When grief heats up: Proinflammatory cytokines predict regional brain activation” (O’Connor, 2009). And this key single study on how grief affects the body: “Physiological correlates of bereavement and the impact of bereavement interventions” (Buckley et al, 2012). 

For the underlying science of “Broken Heart Syndrome” (“Takotsubo Syndrome”), see the clinical study from the New England Journal of Medicine, “Clinical Features and Outcomes of Takotsubo (Stress) Cardiomyopathy (Templin et al, 2015); and this subsequent review “Takotsubo syndrome: State-of-the-art review by an expert panel – Part 1” (Dias et al, 2018)

Select Foundational Sources on the Cultural History of Communal Grieving. In addition to the sources listed in the Introduction under “Select Foundational Sources from Indigenous Scholars,” this book was strongly influenced by Frances Weller’s The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief (2015) and Hirini Moko Mead’s Tikanga Māori: Living by Māori Values (2016). Also these beautiful books: How to Be Free: A Proven Guide to Escaping Life’s Hidden Prisons (Senghor, Shaka, 2025); C.S Lewis’s A Grief Observed (Lewis, C.S. 1961); Carla Fernandez’s Renegade Grief: A Guide to the Wild Ride of Life after Loss (Fernandez, 2025); The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World (Brous, 2024); Black Elk and Joseph Epes Brown’s The Sacred Pipe: Black Elk’s Account of the Seven Rites of the Oglala Sioux. A lively cross-cultural perspective came from Lonely Planet’s Guide to Death, Grief and Rebirth (Isalska and Bindloss, 2024). Ancient texts included The Book of Rites, and the Digital Florentine Codex. 

Select Foundational Sources on the Science of Compassion. These three works from Jennifer Stellar support the science in this book: “Self-Transcendent Emotions and Their Social Functions: Compassion, Gratitude, and Awe Bind Us to Others Through Prosociality” (Stellar, 2017); “Compassion in the autonomic nervous system: The role of the vagus nerve” (Stellar and Keltner, 2017); “Compassion, Gratitude and Awe” (Stellar and Gordon, 2024)

These books build around the studies above: Penny Spikins’s How Compassion Made Us Human; Barbara Fredrickson’s Positive Emotions; Allan Luks with Peggy Payne’s The Healing Power of Doing Good; Sharon Salzberg’s Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (2018); Thich Nhat Hanh’s True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart (2004); Dean Ornish’s Love and Survival: The Healing Power of Intimacy (1998); and Chris Anderson’s Infectious Generosity.

Also see “Select Foundational Sources on the Science of Loneliness (and Togetherness)” in Book 2 Notes.