This collection of previously unpublished essays addresses a wide range of topics relevant to the on-going debates regarding dying and death and the subtleties, nuances, and complexities accompanying these phenomena. The authors have attempted to contribute their experiences, insights, and research results to clarify rather than obfuscate. Topic coverage is broad; however, content depth is not sacrificed. The diversity of authors' backgrounds, both geographical and disciplinary, also serves to make this volume unique. The chapters in this volume offer a substantial contribution in assisting care-givers in arriving at acceptable ethical positions in their pastoral, counseling, medical, and mortician roles.

Death and Spirituality reaches two, perhaps overlapping, audiences.

Human beings experience many losses in a lifetime, but the death of a loved one is among the most traumatic. While grieving is a natural part of life, it still challenges our daily existence. The purpose of Death 101: A Workbook for Educating and Healing, 2nd edition is to provide an understanding of dying, death, and bereavement that will assist individuals to cope better with and understand their own death and the death of others. It enables us to examine cultural attitudes and assumptions about dying and death. Death 101, 2nd edition introduces the dying process, grief work, and ethical and legal issues while providing personal insight and sensitivity. The workbook is meant as a supplement to textbooks on dying and death, to accompany the academic material necessary to increase our knowledge about death education. At the same time, it is intended to be an independent method of working through loss, a personal guide for the journey through grief. Death 101, 2nd edition includes activities that may be used in part or in whole, sequentially or at random, by individuals or a group. Different professionals, including counselors, teachers, clergy, medical personnel, and caregivers, may utilize these activities. The therapeutic exercises in Death 101, 2nd edition will help the lay reader cope effectively with loss and death and allow a more effective life when faced with grief. Scattered throughout the workbook are stories, poems, and comments from others who have traveled through the grieving process.

A guide for school personnel addressing the needs of school communities when one of their members dies. The material details normal and abnormal grief reactions, factors affecting those grief responses, and the differences in death beliefs and responses of students at different ages and developmental stages. Distributed by Taylor and Francis. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book comes out of an in-depth, qualitative study of the experiences of twenty-three families in which one parent was dying of cancer. The study attempted to better understand the impact of terminal illness on the entire family system and sought to develop a theoretical framework that would guide the assessment of and services to such families. As a result of interviews with patients, spouses and their adult children over three phases of the study, the process of ""fading away"" was identified and conceptualized in terms of various phases which contributed to this process. The book is not a research report but rather presents more generally the ideas that developed from the study, with two purposes: to increase the reader's understanding of particular experiences that families encounter when dealing with terminal illness, specifically cancer. The intended readership also includes families themselves: to propose guidelines for care to be considered by practitioners working with such families.

Helping Grieving People – When Tears Are Not Enough is a handbook for care providers who provide service, support and counseling to those grieving death, illness, and other losses. This book is also an excellent text for academic courses as well as for staff development training. The author addresses grief as it affects a variety of relationships and discusses different intervention and support strategies, always cognizant of individual and cultural differences in the expression and treatment of grief. Jeffreys has established a practical approach to preparing grief care providers through three basic tracks. The first track: Heart – calls for self-discovery, freeing oneself of accumulated loss in order to focus all attention on the griever. Second track: Head – emphasizes understanding the complex and dynamic phenomena of human grief. Third track: Hands – stresses the caregiver's actual intervention, and speaks to lay and professional levels of skill, as well as the various approaches for healing available. Accompanying these three motifs, the Handbook discusses the social and cultural contexts of grief as applied to various populations of grievers as well as the underlying psychological basis of human grief. Throughout the book, Jeffreys presents the role of the caregiver as an Exquisite Witness to the journey of grief and pain of bereaved family and friends, and also to the path taken by dying persons and their families. The second edition of Helping Grieving People remains true to the approach that has been so well received in the original volume. It includes updated research findings and addresses new information and developments in the field of loss, grief and bereavement.

The field of bioethics was deeply influenced by religious thinkers as it emerged in the 1960s and early 1970s. Since that time, however, a seemingly neutral political liberalism has pervaded the public sphere, resulting in a deep suspicion of those bringing religious values to bear on questions of bioethics and public policy. As a theological ethicist and progressive Catholic, Lisa Sowle Cahill does not want to cede the "religious perspective" to fundamentalists and the pro-life movement, nor does she want to submit to the gospel of a political liberalism that champions individual autonomy as holy writ. In Theological Bioethics, Cahill calls for progressive religious thinkers and believers to join in the effort to reclaim the best of their traditions through jointly engaging political forces at both community and national levels. In Cahill's eyes, just access to health care must be the number one priority for this type of "participatory bioethics." She describes a new understanding of theological bioethics that must go beyond decrying injustice, beyond opposing social practices that commercialize human beings, beyond painting a vision of a more egalitarian future. Such a participatory bioethics, she argues, must also take account of and take part in a global social network of mobilization for change; it must seek out those in solidarity, those involved in a common calling to create a more just social, political, and economic system. During the past two decades Cahill has made profound contributions to theological ethics and bioethics. This is a magisterial and programmatic statement that will alter how the religiously inclined understand their role in the great bioethics debates of today and tomorrow that yearn for clear thinking and prophetic wisdom.

This is not a book about theory, it is a book about life. This volume is in the excellent Practical Theology Series published by Jessica Kingsley and under the general editorship of John Swinton of Aberdeen University who writes the Foreword. Ray Anderson is an American pastor and academic of many years standing. His starting point is (pre) theoretical, arguing vigorously that practical theology has a particular end in view and therefore differs from the empirical (social) sciences. It is well worth sticking with his argument to see how it works out in practice. Early chapters with phrases in their titles such as "Spiritual Praxis of Practical Theology", "Integrative Gestalt of the Human Self", "Ecological Matrix of the Human Person" and "Social Ecology of Human Spirituality" might seem heavy going at times. Don't be put off! The reader is rewarded with highly relevant contemporary understandings of spirituality illuminating and illuminated by both Scripture and modern theologians and therapists. This book comes highly recommended for anyone involved in the field of mental health care.' - Leveson Newsletter 'This is a book that deserves to be read, and perhaps re-read, by those who deliver spiritual care and wish to reflect on what they do.' - Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy Bridging the gap between clinical and religious professionals, this book examines how both can understand the spiritual needs of the individual, and the importance of this spirituality in bringing about health and wholeness. With an emphasis on mental health, the author explores spirituality in the context of the individual and of society, and discusses how those practicing pastoral or health care can deal with the issues raised outside of any specific religious ideas or practice. Taking an ecological approach to understanding the needs of the individual, Ray S. Anderson shows how professionals can help people move towards a more positive state in the face of pain, distress and illness. Moving religious professionals away from the pursuit of simple edification, and those in health from purely medicalized approaches, Spiritual Caregiving as Secular Sacrament brings together professionals' roles in the context of spirituality to enable them to bring the greatest benefit to those in their care.

The Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing is the definitive text on nursing care of the seriously ill and dying. It is a comprehensive work addressing all aspects of palliative care including physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs. The text is written by leaders in the field and includes an impressive section on international palliative care. Each chapter includes case examples and a strong evidence base to support the highest quality of care. The book is rich with tables and figures offering practical resources for clinical practice across all settings of care and encompassing all ages from pediatrics to geriatrics.