Product Description
One part touching tribute and one-part personal processing, Louis Hoffman’s candid and probing Letters for My Father captures a son’s devotion to a towering and loving, if ultimately imperfect, figure in his life. At the same time, it offers an intimate and sustained gaze at the deep themes in their braided lives, bravely and vulnerably laid bare for the reader. Far from self-indulgent, Hoffman pivots deftly from reminiscence to reflection in letter after letter, seeking the emotional truth of a father‒son bond and its wider relational ripples in an outpouring of letters to, for, and about his father, and the mirror that his living and dying held up to them both. For anyone who is drawn to correspondence with the deceased as a therapeutic tool for authentic grieving, I say, “Read this book.” And to any who doubt the capacity of grief to add existential depth to our fragile existence, I say, “Enter into an imaginal conversation with this author.”
Robert A. Neimeyer, PhD, Director, Portland Institute for Loss and Transition,
and Author, Living Beyond Loss: Questions and Answers about Death and Bereavement
Presented in the form of a collection of 50 love/grief letters, each one a gem in its own right, Louis Hoffman allows the reader to share in his highly nuanced and profoundly authentic reflections on and (re)constructions of his continuing multi-faceted loving relationship with his deceased father, as situated within a unique historical, political, cultural, and personal wider web of bonds and meanings. While Hoffman can draw on a wealth of experience and insight as a psychologist, therapist, and scholar, I felt touched by how true he is to his humanistic and existential heart, speaking with the very personal voice of a son who is pondering both individual life and universal existence, not from a distanced height but from the depths of the lived life, being radically present to process and to what it means to be human. As a psychologist, therapist, and grief and bereavement researcher, I found this book to be a deeply moving and insightful contribution to the literature, to be recommended to practitioners and bereaved clients alike, and as a daughter whose father died nearly a year ago, the book inspired me to enter into fresh conversations and more courageous (self)-reflections of my own.
Edith Steffen, PsychD
Editor, The Handbook of Grief Therapies & Continuing Bonds in Bereavement
What does it mean to lose a father? A deeply personal, moving account of one man’s relationship with his dad, through the lenses of grief, love, and forgiveness. In a series of letters, the book journeys through key contemporary issues including racism, masculinity, and the meaning of success. Dr. Hoffman describes his process of accepting his father as he was and bringing the humanism that defines all his relationships into the heart of his relationship with his father. An honest and insightful exposition of loss, vulnerability, and the yearning for relational depth. We need to love our broken hurt world and to heal it through a life of kindness and compassion.
Mick Cooper, PhD, Professor of Counselling Psychology, University of Roehampton, London
In his own moving words in Letters for My Father, Louis Hoffman models a “healthy, honest grieving process.” A father‒son relationship is precious beyond words, yet Louis has, through his deep love for his father and their relationship, found the right words to move the reader and himself through grief with smiles and tears. Louis’s authenticity as a son shines a brilliant light on the grieving process of losing a father. In my over forty years in a psychology career, I have had the great honor of listening to Hospice Bereavement groups and writing about grief. I know these letters will be insightful to those living through the grieving process. I highly recommend this book to everyone, especially fathers and sons.
Myrtle Heery, PhD, Author of Awakening to Aging and Tracking Kindness
The Irish say when your father dies, you lose your umbrella against bad weather. Thrown this circumstance in his life, for Louis Hoffman it was like having to become that umbrella for his father. His deeply personal account of this journey, boldly recorded here, invites us all to face our own essentially lifelong struggles, our longing for closeness and need for differentiation, our memories both painful and healing, our hopes both dashed and realized, our guilt and our grief, and more. Rich in precious ephemera, the warmth of a smile, the touch of a hand, the tear on a cheek, may these pages draw you into a more truthful and profound understanding of what it is to be human and to be a self.
Erik Craig, EdD
Psychologist, Independence Scholar, and Author
Past President, International Association for the Study of Dreams
Past President, Society for Humanistic Psychology
Before I made it through a handful of letters, I was weeping. I cried many times as I proceeded. My tears were not only for the depth of love and grief in the letters but also for the courage beckoning from the pages. The words were an invitation to dip into the human experience of love and grief. The words asked me to sit with the complicated ways in which humans relate, and how having the courage to show up is more than half the battle. As my own father(s) grow older and I recognize their time is running low, this offering of love reminds me to not waste any time, to be sure to take the time to say all the things that need to be said. Love is easy; relating is harder. Relating requires bravery, vulnerability, authenticity, a willingness to let others sit with us in our brokenness, trusting that they will hold us, and accepting that maybe they won’t but we will be okay anyway. Parenting, and being parented, is a life-giving, soul-shattering, expansive experience that can bring us the heights of joy and the depths of despair. This book offers readers the opportunity to experience both.
L. Xochitl Vallejos, PhD, Editor, Lullabies & Confessions
Board Chair, Rocky Mountain Humanistic Counseling & Psychological Association
Even as there is no one or correct way to grieve, as Dr. Hoffman says in this wonderful book, Letters for My Father, the reader will find a candid, poignantly vulnerable, and exquisitely insightful reflection on grief and the journey of bereavement that gifts us a rich validation to anyone living with the loss of a significant loved one. Not since C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed have I encountered such a sublime gateway to one of the most difficult and loving experiences we will ever have as human beings. More than anything, Dr. Hoffman shows that even as we experience grief and loss as something that diminishes us, leaving an unfillable vacuum in our soul, it can also be the ultimate culmination of love—the thing that illuminates us in the fullness and richness of our humanity! Dr. Hoffman embraces this paradox with grace, humility, and courage. It is clear to me that he embodies and carries forward the best of his father’s qualities and legacy in his own unique way. Aware that he is not an optimist like his father was, he places a high value on facing life directly with courage and honesty—and he does so in a way that inspires resilience and strength in those whose lives he touches. I can’t help but feel that his father would and did recognize that from a very deep place. What is remembered, lives! He has ensured his father’s immortality through these letters he has written, as well as through his own ongoing work in the world. Dr. Hoffman consistently stands up for integrity, truth, and authenticity in times when they are sorely needed. Thank you, Dr. Hoffman, on behalf of us all who feel distinctly witnessed in our own soul loss and recovery in grief, as we yearn and strive to transform pain into beauty.
Drake Spaeth, PsyD
Director, Existential-Humanistic Psychology Specialization, Saybrook University
Past President (2019-2020), Society for Humanistic Psychology (APA Division 32)
What a rare gem this book is! Louis Hoffman shares with us his unconditional love and wisdom for his departed father in very compelling and intimate language. The book made me feel that I had met both these men in these pages in a rare and profound way through the journey of reading it. I especially love that this book was written with the fierce urgency of “daimonic” wisdom that Louis transparently and humbly shares with us. His process is simultaneously very raw and yet also sophisticated. All sorts of rich paradoxes emerge spontaneously in the letters that he writes to his father with also simple but powerful truths. His central concern is a genuine and open-ended concern to find the truths emerging in his heuristic-like exploration of his grief. However, Louis withholds very little about his process and journey and openly discusses many of the most important issues about life itself in this book. He seems auspiciously free of any attempt to steer the flow of the current of his emerging awareness and wisdom to arrive at some predetermined conclusion or even towards a conclusion at all. A very helpful book for all of us and also a real gem of humanistic wisdom for anyone fortunate enough to read these words.
Ian Wickramaskera II
Faculty, Fielding University
In Letters to My Father, Louis Hoffman writes honest and vulnerable letters that explore the complexity of grief after the death of his father. The letters provide insight and encouragement for others finding their way through grief. Oftentimes, there is unresolved conflict and a need for honest conversation after the death of a loved one. This book shares a therapeutic process for grief and self-exploration. Dr. Hoffman illustrates how writing can be a powerful tool for self-exploration and emotional healing. His letters guide readers through the tangled emotions that grief stirs, revealing how growth and clarity can emerge when we give voice to our pain, contradictions, and hopes. Personally, I was profoundly touched by the honesty and exploration of family relationships within Letters to My Father. Dr. Hoffman’s letter writing brings us to the universal wisdom that joy and sorrow coexist. The letters demonstrate that relationships do not end with death—we continue to be transformed. In this book, the process of letter writing offers readers a process to cultivate continuing bonds, understanding, and growth after the death of loved ones.
Terri Goslin-Jones, PhD
Faculty, Saybrook University
Author of Life’s Concerto: Wholeness through Poetry and Expressive Arts
In the lost art of letter writing, Louis invites the reader to accompany him through an intimate path of a son’s grief. Seeking to humanize, rather than create a false idolization of his father, he openly pours his heart out to his father about his reflections on the love, struggles, gifts, and regrets within their relationship of father and son, as well as how a new lens of introspection was birthed through pain. As grieving is different with each person and each loss, Louis offers an opportunity to share in his approach of actively engaging grief through the written word.
Michael Moats, PsyD, psychologist and author of Sunrise Through the Darkness:
A Survivor’s Account of Learning to Live Again Beyond 9/11
Beauty in brokenness. Paradoxes of grief. Letters for My Father: Grief, Love, and Self-Exploration is truly a tour de force depicting, as its name implies, the lived experience of grieving the loss of a father. Hoffman’s letters explore the depths of love, the paradox of emptiness and fulfillment, and the beauty in brokenness that can sometimes only be experienced posthumously. Louis, I am extremely grateful and palpably humbled at the invite into your grief—your world—your soul.
Nathaniel Granger, Jr., PsyD, Past President, Society for Humanistic Psychology
Editor, University Professors Press
Letters for My Father offers a moving and mature reflection on the father-son relationship, skillfully weaving a narrative that honors the complexity of familial love. Written through the eyes of a son in mourning, these letters capture not only personal grief but also a developmental journey through the later phases of the family life cycle—where adult children re-evaluate their parents with both compassion and clarity. The emotional tension present in these pages is never gratuitous; rather, it reflects a courageous commitment to truth-telling that respects the enduring bond between parent and child. In family systems theory, we understand that unresolved conflict can reverberate across generations. Yet here, the author demonstrates how reflective grief can become a generative act. For clinicians, Letters for My Father provides valuable insights into individuation and mourning in the adult father-son relationship. For any reader, it is a brave and beautiful testament to love made stronger through loss.
H. Luis Vargas, PhD, LMFT
Private Supervision Practice
Founding Director of Clinical Training, Center for Humanistic and Interpersonal Psychotherapy
I have known Dr. Louis Hoffman as a friend and colleague for the past two decades. We have collaborated on a few book projects and this is the book that felt most intimate because of the courage of vulnerability evident throughout. In addition to providing plenty of wisdom as to how an existential approach can impact one’s grieving, the sharing of Dr. Hoffman’s heart space inspired me to open up my own heart space to myself and others. I know the book will do the same for you.
Mark Yang, PhD; Author, Lighting the Candle:
Taoist Principles in Supervision Conducted from an Existential-Humanistic Perspective
and Existential Psychology and the Way of the Tao
From the Foreword:
This book is… public grieving. A meditation on love, loss, relationships, and regret, in a time where we ignore our shadow at our absolute peril. I have been pleased to sit with Louis in classrooms, therapy offices, on stages, in virtual places, on planes and trains, buses and waiting rooms. In each of those places, he is just himself. And now the pleasure of sitting with him in this book, this epistolary call to authenticity, this inner-speech out loud. This is intimacy.
Jason Dias, PsyD
Author, Values of Pain; Finding Life on Mars: A Novel of Isolation, and Connoisseurs of Suffering
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.