A Child's Parent Dies: Studies in Childhood Bereavement. Erna Furman. New Haven:  Yale University Press, 1974.  xi + 316 pp.

This volume is a collaborative effort based on the clinical experience of fourteen psychoanalysts and child psychotherapists working in the Cleveland area. The sample consisted of twenty-three children who experienced the loss of a parent through death while they were in individual treatment in an outpatient setting or in attendance at a therapeutic nursery school and kindergarten. The book, consisting of nine chapters and an extensive bibliography, tries to interweave psychoanalytic theory with detailed case histories. Five of the chapters were written by Erna Furman, and each of the remaining chapters consists of an introduction by her followed by a case history-written by a colleague. There are ten case histories in all. The subject matter is wide-ranging and embraces the processes of grief and mourning, the life circumstances under which bereavement occurs, the relationship of the nature of the object loss to the developmental stage when it was experienced, the mechanisms of decathexis and recathexis, identification with the dead parent, differences between adults' and children's reactions to bereavement, the effects of a parent's death on the child's later personality, and the nature of depression and apathy. The concluding chapter provides a detailed summary of the psychoanalytic literature on mourning.

Because this book draws on the experience of numerous seasoned therapists, it is rich in case history materials, astute observations about the actual conditions of childhood bereavement, and suggested strategies for therapeutic intervention. Although the authors eschew the search for a comprehensive theory of mourning, they maintain a fairly consistent theoretical perspective, with special emphasis on the processes of cathexis, decathexis, and recathexis. There are illuminating comparisons of the long-term consequences of identification with the dead parent as opposed to the effects of recathexis. Much practical advice is provided on telling small children about