Bereavement: Reactions, Consequences, and Care

This monograph is an important contribution to the growing literature on the interaction between the psychological, social, and biologic. Those of us who have worked in the field of thanatology have known for a long time the enormous stress that loss places on individuals and families and have been concerned with the issue of care and prevention. It has been difficult to communicate this to clinicians, so often overloaded with work and their own emotional responses triggered by their efforts with the dying person. To add a whole new category of persons in need of evaluation, persons going through a "normal" event in the life cycle, seemed somehow more than could be integrated. This highly readable compendium of knowledge and research in the study of bereavement will leave no one in doubt as to the necessity for further efforts in clinical, biologic, and public health research. As an essential reference