Dr Lois Tonkin has worked as a counsellor, educator and writer about issues of loss and grieving for over 25 years. Shehas a special interest in the disenfranchised grief experienced by people whohave non-bereavement losses. She is well known in the UK and NZ for her work about the ways people 'grow around grief'; where they find ways to 'live with'their losses rather than 'get over' over them. Lois is a lecturer in counselling and in qualitative research methods at the University of Canterbury/Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha, New Zealand. She is also a counsellor for Genea Oxford Fertility, in Christchurch. She lives in Diamond Harbour, Aotearoa/New Zealand.