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It is stated on the jacket that 'the purpose of this book is to define concepts and practices for professionals of all kinds who
are called upon to handle matters relating to loss and grief. It also deals with the matter of loss of biological function and the psychological aspects of death with respect to the patient, the family, and particularly children. The book is unique, and its twenty-four contributors include, among others, psychiatrists, physicians, clergy, dentists, and psychologists.'
The authors and editors succeed remarkably well, producing a book that can be recommended to any physician and paramedical professional, and to psychoanalysts teaching in medical schools, hospitals, seminaries, etc. Most of the contributions are of high quality, some too brief. It can serve too as a model of expressing psychoanalytic concepts in simple terms.
The papers are arranged in five sections: Psychological Concepts Central to Loss and Grief, Loss and Grief in Childhood, Reaction to and Management of Partial Loss, The Dying Patient, and Humanistic and Biologic Concepts Regarding Loss and Grief. One of the most interesting chapters is The Hospital Chaplain Looks at Grief by Robert B. Reeves, Jr. In discussing his hospital experiences, Reeves states:
The deceptions and disguises by which people try to disown or keep feelings of grief to themselves are often rudely penetrated by the life-and-death thrust of crisis in a hospital. A chaplain is likely to see in a raw state the things that people usually deal with only under wraps. Patients, their families, and members of hospital staff alike, tend to feel embarrassed by grief, and the more religious they suppose themselves to be the guiltier they become. Even the nonreligious tend to be embarrassed and apologetic. Maintaining control seems to be an obsession.
Instances are encountered daily. Members of a dying patient's family gathered at his bedside and in spite of themselves broke down in anguish. Immediately,