Doka explores a new, compassionate way to grieve as he explains that grief is not an illness to get over but an individual and ongoing journey. He upends the dominant but incorrect view that grief proceeds by stages, and helps us realize that our experiences following a death are far more individual and much less predictable than the conventional "five stages" model would have us believe. Doka also explains how to cope with disenfranchised grief, not so readily recognized or supported by society, such as the death of ex-spouses, the end of a friendship, job loss, or infertility.