THE GRIEF TOWER: A practical guide to processing grief with third culture kids

Published: 2021

UNSTACKING YOUR GRIEF TOWER for adult third culture kids

Published: 2021

Both books were written by Lauren Wells.

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Summary:

Lauren Wells is the CEO of TCK Training and the Unstacking Company. The TCK life is an ampersand where life is both exciting and hard. As a TCK and working with a number of TCKs, she found that processing grief and loss was hard work. She also noticed a gap in the care for TCKs and started to fill that gap with her book, Raising up a Generation of Healthy Third Culture Kids. Soon after, she released her books based on the Grief Tower Model that she developed. This model is to help process grief and loss.

THE GRIEF TOWER

This book is only 84 pages long. The chapters are short and easy to read. It is the theory behind the Grief Tower Model. Lauren offers clear understanding with practical suggestions to help TCKs process their own grief and loss. I appreciate this book as it breaks up the ideas for younger and older TCKs and how to relate to each group. It is a good book if you are curious about a grief model that looks at the life of TCKs. But if you plan to use the model with others, I highly recommend taking one of TCK Training’s workshops on debriefs or transitions.

UNSTACKING YOUR GRIEF TOWER

This is a practical guide for adult third-culture kids (ATCK), not children. It complements the book THE GRIEF TOWER, but you would not necessarily need to read it first. Lauren spends time in the introduction explaining the whats and whys behind this model. Each chapter guides you in processing your grief tower by asking questions or providing activities to work through. It can be done individually, or it could be done in a group where individuals share and move along together. This would need to be a “safe” space with guided rules of conduct, but processing grief with others can be healing. The Unstacking Company also offers a guided video workshop called Unstacking Your Grief Tower 101 led by Lauren. They also offer a workshop Processing Current Grief. Both workshops can be found here.

Both books warn that they are for educational purposes and not to be a substitute for “professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.”