Psychotherapy and the Widowed Patient

Coming at a time of renewed interest in the developmental changes of the life cycle, Psychotherapy and the Widowed Patient is a rich resource that examines the impact of a spouse's death on an individual's mental health. Psychiatrists and psychoanalysts address a wide range of issues concerning loss, grief, and bereavement, and provide practical and creative approaches for both widowed persons and the helping professionals charged with treating their grief. Chapters in this compassionate volume discuss the characteristics of individuals who are more likely to seek professional help in coping with grief, widowhood as a time of growth and development, the value of openness instead of denial in dealing with death, the grieving process in young widowed spouses, the similarities of widowhood to separation and divorce, the role of dependency in how well widowed patients develop emotionally, and the role of loyalty in the process of grief. The more clinical chapters examine strategies for carrying out experiential psychotherapy with widowed patients, rational-emotive therapy, grief therapy, the effects of new perspectives on spousal bereavement on clinical practice, and aspects of bereavement response to loss, with a timeframe for viewing psychotherapeutic intervention. A review of the psychological literature regarding widowhood completes this comprehensive new book.

E Mark Stern

Contents The Widowed and the Widowed Patient: A Preface (E. Mark Stern) - The Widow as Survivor and "Killer" (E. Mark Stern) - On Inspiration (Sharon Hymer) - Widowhood: Integrating Loss and Love (Ruth S. Farber) - When the Spouse Is Dead: The Alternative Approach of Experiential Psychotherapy (Alvin R. Mahrer, Terry M. Howard, Patricia A. Gervaize, and Donald M. Boulet) - Psychotherapist and Widower (Roy Persons) - Separation, Widowhood, and Divorce (Gladys Natchez) - The Loss Unit: Reflections on Widowhood (Daphne Barnes) - Treating the Widowed Client With Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET) (Albert Ellis) - An Agenda for Treating Widowed Patents (Betty C. Buchsbaum) - Widowhood: The Labor of Grief (Robert J. Dunn and Amelia Vernon) - The Ties That Bind: Loyalty and Widowhood (David B. Seaburn) - Widowhood as a Time for Growth and Development (Jeanette Hainer) - Whom God Has Joined (Bruce J. Schell) - My Granddaughters Cope With the Death of Their Father (Neil Lamper) - Therapists Raised by Widowed Fathers (Merle R. Jordan) - Treating the Bereaved Spouse: A Focus on the Loss Process, the Self, and the Other (Simon Shimshon Rubin) - The Construing Widow: Dislocation and Adaptation in Bereavement (Linda L. Viney) - Object Loss and Pathalogical Consequence: A Study in the Psychological Treatment of Loss and Self-Injury (Louis Birner) - The Fullness of Emptiness (Edward A. Wise)