"He was my best friend." "I feel like I've lost that one person I could always count on." Siblings know each other in ways friends and other blood relatives do not. They have shared bedrooms, bathrooms, holidays, family milestones, meals, and a way of growing up that those outside the family can never fully understand. The bond is intense, complicated, sometimes difficult, often wonderful and absolutely irreplaceable. When death interrupts what might have been a lovely, lifelong connection, the impact is tremendous. And yet, this loss is rarely the focus of research and is not well understood or recognised within society, leaving many siblings searching for appropriate support and validation. This book gives readers the opportunity to experience the intensity of this relationship through the eyes of three bereaved siblings. Their experiences, both before and after loss, are powerfully presented using a narrative style that allows the complexity and depth of their individual relationships to shine brightly. The author, a bereaved sibling herself, artfully weaves her story throughout, adding to the richness of the text. Through these collective stories, readers are invited to explore their own reactions and reflect on the many ways siblings affect each other over the long term. Bereaved siblings, clinicians, medical professionals, therapists, social workers, funeral directors, religious leaders, bereavement groups, and anyone who supports or knows a bereaved sibling will find benefit in this book. This highly readable text will both touch and inform readers.

The editors undertook this project to promote the International Conference on Death, Grief, and Bereavement in La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA. Throughout its history, the conference has attracted internationally known speakers. This book illustrates the quality of their presentations. Section One, "Professional Applications in End of Life Care," begins with Currier, Hammer, and Neimeyer's examination of the importance of the social network, including both religion and family, not just the individual, in working with those at the end of their lives. The authors analyse the impact of social support and its health implications. In Chapter 2, Parkes looks at the influence of child development on adult life and bereavement. Rather than simply showing how insecure child development affects loss as adults, he examines how insecure attachments in childhood can lead to extreme attachments to God, homes, territories, political leaders, and symbols and discusses interventions for these extreme attachments. Papadatou (Chapter 3) develops a model for professionals and caregivers who work with the dying. She suggests that those who give care to the dying also have multiple needs and also face suffering, examines the private world of professionals and what is healthy and what is unavoidable, and describes both functional and dysfunctional coping patterns used by professionals. Kobler (Chapter 4) uses case studies to explain how to develop and maintain relationships with children and their families in paediatric palliative care. She offers strategies for using rituals and ways to initiate and maintain relationships with children and their families. Thompson (Chapter 5) focuses on the effects of working in situations involving high levels of emotion and the stress that may result. He makes a strong case that such stress can do harm to individuals, groups, and whole organisations and offers a model for a more holistic approach that incorporates social and organisational strategies and practical ways to prevent and manage stress. Eves-Baine and colleagues (Chapter 6) examine the application of paediatric and adult-based principles to the newborn period. They discuss how to create the best situations for families when life-sustaining medical therapy has been withdrawn, how to support the family, and the ethical challenges that perinatal palliative care presents. The authors offer models for care through the journey of palliative and bereavement care. Section Two, "Facing End of Life and Its Care," begins with Gilbert's chapter presenting a strong argument that caregivers need to honour the multiple tracks that come with dying while maintaining a focus on the wishes of the dying person. He offers ways for the team to better meet the needs of the dying person. Koppleman (Chapter 8) follows the journey of a friend who faced death. It is a powerful story, told from the point of view of the dying in a scholarly fashion. Smith and Potter (Chapter 9) suggest that palliative care for the dying can be defined as offering "comfort care," both for those who are dying and for their loved ones. The authors present a model of the psycho-spiritual side of palliative care as a way of offering comfort to all those involved. Adams (Chapter 10) examines different methods of working with patients and families. It looks at the ways in which such work can be complicated by factors of geographic distance, differences in family reactions, differences in treatment plan concepts, and in meaning making. All of these factors may become stumbling blocks and may prevent the delivery of positive support. Pizzini (Chapter 11) looks at the experience of dying in prison from the perspective of inmates who are terminally ill, prison medical staff, and prison security staff. She discusses how to maintain dignity of the dying and a "good death" while in prison. McCord (Chapter 12) discusses attempts by hospice patients and others diagnosed with terminal illnesses to die either by their own hand or with physician assistance. She presents common risk factors, strategies to assess the degree of risk and possible plans for suicide and suicide postvention in the context of hospice. Section Three, "Cultural Considerations in End-of-Life Care" begins with The End of Life: Two Perspectives in which Robert G. Stevenson looks at two perspectives on the end of life that are not often examined in terms of their impact on the individual and his/her attitude toward this time. The two perspectives are that of adolescents, and that are shown in a military ceremony used in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Feu de Joie or Fire of Joy. In Chapter Fourteen, Janet McCord discusses suicide attempts by hospice patients and others diagnosed with terminal illnesses to die either by their own hand or with physician assistance. Connor's description of the need for hospice and palliative care around the world and the challenges of developing palliative care globally, and offers models that can be used around the world. Cox and Cox (Chapter 15) suggest ways to offer end-of-life care to Roman Catholics who do not fit the traditional model of hospice care and examine special needs, theology, and rituals. Cox and Sullivan (Chapter 16) offer suggestions on end-of-life care for American Indians, explaining cultural differences among American Indians and suggesting ways to improve care to a group that is generally neglected in hospice care. Smith (Chapter 17) looks at the cultural differences and understandings of Fundamentalist Christian views of a "good death" and the afterlife, ways to negotiate faith understandings that complicate end-of-life care, and ways to comfort individuals who may be marginalised because they do not share the theological views of the dying individual or key family members.

The immensely influential work of Jacques Lacan challenges readers both for the difficulty of its style and for the wide range of intellectual references that frame its innovations. Lacan's work is challenging too, for the way it recentres psychoanalysis on one of the most controversial points of Freud's theory - the concept of a self-destructive drive or 'death instinct'. Originally published in 1991, Death and Desire presents in Lacanian terms a new integration of psychoanalytic theory in which the battery of key Freudian concepts - from the dynamics of the Oedipus complex to the topography of ego, id, and superego - are seen to intersect in Freud's most far-reaching and speculative formulation of a drive toward death. Boothby argues that Lacan repositioned the theme of death in psychoanalysis in relation to Freud's main concern - the nature and fate of desire. In doing so, Lacan rediscovered Freud's essential insights in a manner so nuanced and penetrating that prevailing assessments of the death instinct may well have to be re-examined. Although the death instinct is usually regarded as the most obscure concept in Freud's metapsychology, and Lacan to be the most perplexing psychoanalytic theorist, Richard Boothby's straightforward style makes both accessible. He illustrates the coherence of Lacanian thought and shows how Lacan's work comprises a 'return to Freud' along new and different angles of approach. Written with an eye to the conceptual structure of psychoanalytic theory, Death and Desire will appeal to psychoanalysts and philosophers alike.

Cemetery Tours and Programming: A Guide shows the range and opportunities of cemetery programming that go beyond basic starting points like dog-walking or traditional historic walking tours. It illustrates the reuses of both historic and contemporary burial grounds through the lenses of recreation, education, and reflection. This guide takes readers through the historical roots of cemetery programming, options for creating diverse programming, and step-by-step suggestions for executing events. While most cemeteries do not have a large paid staff, this book is accessible to anyone (paid staff members, volunteers, a Friends Group, or museum or historical society) looking to broaden the scope of how their local cemetery is utilized.

Departing from a persisting current in Western thought, which conceives of time in the abstract, and often reflects upon death as occupying a space at life's margins, this book begins from position that it is in fact through the material and perishable world that we experience time. As such, it is with death and our encounters with it, that form the basis of human conceptions of time. Presenting rich, interdisciplinary empirical studies of death rituals and practices across the globe, from the US and Europe, Asia, The Middle East, Australasia and Africa, Taming Time, Timing Death explores the manner in which social technologies and rituals have been and are implemented to avoid, delay or embrace death, or communicate with the dead, thus informing and manifesting humans' understanding of time. It will therefore be of interest to scholars and students of anthropology, philosophy, sociology and social theory, human geography and religion.

Investigating the question 'can theology, description of the divine reality, be made truly scientific?', this book addresses logic and human knowledge alongside experimental religion. An important philosophic work by a prolific theologian also known for his later court case regarding conscientious objection, this book describes how it is possible to relate theological theory with religious experience of the divine the way that the sciences relate to human acquaintance with things and people in social experience.

In this major new study Christian Baudelot and Roger Establet provide a timely and wide-ranging account of the changing nature of suicide in the world today. The suicide rate is soaring in the former Communist bloc, in India and in China, which now has the highest female suicide rate in the world. This rise coincides with those countries accelerated entry into a period of brutal modernization. In the developed countries of the West, suicide rates are rising fastest amongst young men and those social groups that are furthest down the social scale. How can we explain these trends and what do they tell us about modern societies?
The social impact of suicide has preoccupied sociologists from Emile Durkheim onwards. For Durkheim, the rising suicide rate was an effect of the rise of modernity and the individualism, growing affluence and increased anomie that accompanied it. Baudelot and Establet draw upon Durkheim and his successor Maurice Halbwachs to argue that classic sociological theories of suicide require some modification. The link between suicide, affluence and individualism is more complex: suicide rates do reflect broad social trends but they are also influenced by the structural position and lived experience of small social groups. The notion of social well-being is demonstrated to be a key factor in changes in suicide rates. Whilst it is well-known that sociology cannot explain why individuals commit suicide, the suicide of individuals and the micro-groups to which they belong can tell us a lot about the societies in which they live.

The neurological criteria for the determination of death remain controversial within secular and Catholic circles, even though they are widely accepted within the medical community. In Determining Death by Neurological Criteria, Matthew Hanley offers both a practical and a philosophical defense. Hanley shows that the criteria are often misapplied in clinical settings, leading to cases where persons declared dead apparently spontaneously revive. These instances are often connected to a rushed decision to retrieve donated organs, thus undermining the trust of the public in organ donation. Hanley calls on health care institutions to take seriously their obligation to establish strict protocols for the determination of death, including who may conduct the examinations. From a broader perspective, Hanley considers how the criteria rely on a philosophical conception of the person as a living organism whose unity disintegrates at death. This view, he notes, corresponds to the Catholic conviction that the soul is the life-principle of the body, which departs at death, bringing about the destruction of the body-soul composite. The Vatican, recognizing that death is a medical judgment, has generally given its approval to the criteria. Hanley also reviews the many and various objections offered by detractors, including against the use of the apnea test, which is faulted as a practice that sometimes hastens death. The problem of the continued presence of certain vital functions within the deceased body of the brain dead is explored in detail, with reference to particular cases and to solutions proposed by leading physicians and bioethicists. Hanley likewise addresses the dilemma of having two separate standards for death, one neurological and the other cardiopulmonary. Given the possibility of resuscitation following loss of the cardio-circulatory system, he concludes that the neurological criteria must be the true standard. Stoppage of the heart leads swiftly to the final necrosis of the brain.

Cheese puffs. Coffee. Sunscreen. Vapes. Hand sanitiser. George Zaidan reveals the weird science behind everyday items that may or may not kill you, depending on whom you ask. If you want easy answers, this book is not for you. But if you're curious which health studies to trust, what dense scientific jargon really means, and how to make better choices when it comes to food and health - dive right in! Zaidan makes chemistry more fun than potions class as he reveals exactly what science can (and can't) tell us about the packaged ingredients we buy in the supermarket. He demystifies the ingredients of life and death - and explains how we know whether something is good or bad for you - in exquisite, hilarious detail at breakneck speed. PRAISE FOR INGREDIENTS 'If you ever thought that chemistry might be really interesting (it is), but your eyes glazed over in high school chem class, this is the book for you. George Zaidan will keep you laughing out loud as he shares the wonders of our most useful, practical science, with brilliant analogies that even an 11-year old can understand.' Daniel J. Levitin, author of Successful Aging and This is Your Brain on Music 'If you crossed Bill Nye with Stephen Colbert, you'd get George Zaidan. Ingredients is a masterful piece of science writing.' Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive 'Ingredients lifts the film from our eyes with humour and reassurance.' Hank Green, author of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing 'At last, a book on nutrition that tries to make you understand how little we know instead of offering blanket prognostications. If instead of a simple solution, you want a guide to how to think about health, this is it.' Zach and Kelly Weinersmith, New York Times best-selling authors of Soonish 'Ingredients, is everything that should lead you to expect: funny, edgy, fascinating, dismaying, reassuring, and overall just incredibly smart.' Deborah Blum, Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Poison Squad 'You should buy Ingredients because it teaches you how to think better - like a smart, informed, and wickedly funny scientist.' Sam Kean, author of The Disappearing Spoon 'Omfg this book is FABULOUS! It's hilarious, insightful, sassy, and reassuring. A delightful roller-coaster of science communication.' Kallie Moore, Co-host of PBS Eons

An interdisciplinary collection of essays on the medical and social articulation of death, this anthology considers to what extent a subject as elusive as death can be examined. Though it touches us all, we can perceive it only in life - with the predictable result that we treat it either as a clinical or social problem to be managed or as a phenomenon to be studied quantitatively. This volume goes beyond these models to question self-reflexively how the management of death is organized and motivated and the ways that death is at once feared and embraced. Drawing on the very latest in the medical humanities, Spectacular Death gives us an enlightening new perspective on death from the classical world to the twenty-first century.

Going beyond the frameworks of the anthropology of death, Articulate Necrographies offers a dramatic new way of studying the dead and their interactions with the living. Traditional anthropology has tended to dichotomize societies where death "speaks" from those where death is "silent" - the latter is deemed "scientific" and the former "religious" or "magical". The collection introduces the concept of "necrography" to describe the way death and the dead create their own kinds of biographies in and among the living, and asks what kinds of articulations and silences this in turn produces in the lives of those affected.

Death is at once a universal and everyday, but also an extraordinary experience in the lives of those affected. Death and bereavement are thereby intensified at (and frequently contained within) certain sites and regulated spaces, such as the hospital, the cemetery and the mortuary. However, death also affects and unfolds in many other spaces: the home, public spaces and places of worship, sites of accident, tragedy and violence. Such spaces, or Deathscapes, are intensely private and personal places, while often simultaneously being shared, collective, sites of experience and remembrance; each place mediated through the intersections of emotion, body, belief, culture, society and the state. Bringing together geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, cultural studies academics and historians among others, this book focuses on the relationships between space/place and death/ bereavement in 'western' societies. Addressing three broad themes: the place of death; the place of final disposition; and spaces of remembrance and representation, the chapters reflect a variety of scales ranging from the mapping of bereavement on the individual or in private domestic space, through to sites of accident, battle, burial, cremation and remembrance in public space. The book also examines social and cultural changes in death and bereavement practices, including personalisation and secularisation. Other social trends are addressed by chapters on green and garden burial, negotiating emotion in public/ private space, remembrance of violence and disaster, and virtual space. A meshing of material and 'more-than-representational' approaches consider the nature, culture, economy and politics of Deathscapes - what are in effect some of the most significant places in human society.

Between 1700 and 1900, the subject of disinterment (exhumation) attracted the attention of antiquaries, who constructed a comprehensive memory of the past by 'reading' corpses as documents describing an idealised past. Between 1700 and 1900, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were stereotyped, idealised, and held as a standard by which the present time could be measured. Various figures in politics, academia, and the church pointed to historical persons such as Henry VIII, Shakespeare, Charles I, and Oliver Cromwell as icons whose lives, deaths and corpses illustrated the victories of English Protestantism, the values of Monarchism (or Republicanism), and the superiority of the English culture and its language. In particular, the subject of disinterment (exhumation) attracted the attention of antiquaries. They constructed a comprehensive memory of the past by 'reading' corpses as documents describing an idealised past. These 'texts' accompanied and enhanced the traditional texts of chronicle, literature, and epitaph. This study explores the cooperation of ideology and aesthetic, the paradox of allure and revulsion, and the uncanny attraction to death. In each case there is a desire for the dead to speak in a contemporary voice; each historical personage becomes symbolic of larger aspects of the contemporary culture. The discourse of the noble body in death is reconfigured to validate English nationalist ideals and to establish the past as a Golden Era of unimpeachable superiority. It was not enough simply to study the lives and deaths of historical figures. Itwas necessary to disinter the corpses, engage physically with the dead, and experience the discourse of validation. THEA TOMAINI is Associate Professor of English (Teaching) at the University of Southern California.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound and persistent impact. A tragic loss of life, change to established patterns of life and social inequalities laid bare. It brought out the good in many and the worst in others and raised questions around what is truly important in our lives. In this book, academics, activists and artists come together to remember and to reflect on the pandemic. What lessons should we learn? And how can things be different when this is over? Sensitive to inequalities of gender, race and class, it highlights the experience of marginalised and minority groups and the unjust and uneven spread of violence, deprivation and death. It combines academic analysis with personal testimonies, poetry and images from contributors including Sue Black, Led By Donkeys, Lucy Easthope, Lara- Rose Iredale, Michael Rosen and Gary Younge. Taken together, this truly inclusive commemorative overview honours the experience of a global disaster lived up close and suggests the steps needed to ensure we do better next time.

In the wake of a suicide, the most troubling questions are invariably the most difficult to answer: How could we have known? What could we have done? And always, unremittingly: Why? Written by a clinical psychologist whose own life has been touched by suicide, this book offers the clearest account ever given of why some people choose to die.

Drawing on extensive clinical and epidemiological evidence, as well as personal experience, Thomas Joiner brings a comprehensive understanding to seemingly incomprehensible behavior. Among the many people who have considered, attempted, or died by suicide, he finds three factors that mark those most at risk of death: the feeling of being a burden on loved ones; the sense of isolation; and, chillingly, the learned ability to hurt oneself. Joiner tests his theory against diverse facts taken from clinical anecdotes, history, literature, popular culture, anthropology, epidemiology, genetics, and neurobiology--facts about suicide rates among men and women; white and African-American men; anorexics, athletes, prostitutes, and physicians; members of cults, sports fans, and citizens of nations in crisis.

The result is the most coherent and persuasive explanation ever given of why and how people overcome life's strongest instinct, self-preservation. Joiner's is a work that makes sense of the bewildering array of statistics and stories surrounding suicidal behavior; at the same time, it offers insight, guidance, and essential information to clinicians, scientists, and health practitioners, and to anyone whose life has been affected by suicide.

Death consumes our lives. As such, it is unsurprising that our leisure time, recreational activities and playful exploits are also infatuated with dying, death and the dead. Death, Culture and Leisure offers a playful exploration of the way in which we play with both death and the dead. This inter- and multi-disciplinary work brings together a variety of scholars to consider the nexuses that exist between death, culture and leisure. Edited by Matt Coward-Gibbs, this collection provides an exploration of how our leisure time and playful exploits are interwoven with death. Embracing an array of tensions and contradictions, this book draws on a diverse trajectory of examples ranging from play in the post-Anthropocene to the articulate undead, and from the depictions of death in children's picture books to the playful activism of the death positivity movement. Bringing together debates from thanatology, game studies, sociology, music studies, theatre studies, contemporary literature, religious studies and media studies, this innovative collection offers up a rich assemblage of interdisciplinary voices. This text invites readers to not only consider the diverse ways in which we play dead but also invokes a call to explore the myriad of presentations of death, dying and disposal that exist in leisure environs.

The Philosophy of Death Reader presents a collection of classic readings from across the centuries and the continents. Organised around central metaphysical questions from whether soul is immortal to what can experience death, it brings together pivotal readings from ancient, modern and contemporary philosophers. The twenty-four readings require no background in philosophy. Featuring writings from Vedanta, the ancient Greeks, the Buddhist tradition, Christian eschatology, and recent analytic philosophy, they flow thematically and cover: - Key metaphysical topics including immortality, rebirth and the after - Scientific perspectives on biology and the brain - Axiological questions surrounding old age, the soul and how to live with mortality Accompanied throughout by editor's notes, introductory material, and discussion questions, this cross-cultural reader draws themes together, encourages further study and introduces a broad range of philosophical thinking about death.

This book brings together the relevant interdisciplinary and method elements needed to form a conceptual framework that is both pragmatic and rigorous. By using the best and often the latest, work in thanatology, psychology, neuroscience, sociology, physics, philosophy and ethics, it develops a framework for understanding both what death is - which requires a great deal of time spent developing definitions of the various types of identity-in-the-moment and identity-over-time - and the values involved in death. This pragmatic framework answers questions about why death is a form of loss; why we experience the emotional reactions, feelings and desires that we do; which of these reactions, feelings and desires are justified and which are not; if we can survive death and how; whether our deaths can harm us; and why and how we should prepare for death. Thanks to the pragmatic framework employed, the answers to the various questions are more likely to be accurate and acceptable than those with less rigorous scholarly underpinnings or which deal with utopian worlds.

This final volume of ""Death and Bereavement Around the World"" reflects on some major themes: death and after-life, religion and spirituality, rites and rituals, secularist approaches, cultural variations, suicide, and other issues. The first few chapters describe progress in end-of-life care, including some new tools to evaluate hospice care (chapter 1); what children know, when they know it, and how parents can respond to questions, with some guidelines for support by schools (chapter 2); the importance of ritual (chapter 3); and, gender differences in death customs around the world (chapter 4).The transcript of a 1997 interview of John (Jack) Morgan by Pittu Laungani is presented as chapter 5. The following chapters discuss death systems and suicide (chapter 6); HIV/AIDS, including the role of cultural and economic factors in the spread of the disease (chapter 7); and grief and bereavement in the developing world, taking the AIDS pandemic as a specific challenge (chapter 8). Chapter 9 covers issues related to dying and death in Romania. In chapter 10 the focus is on the various functions and uses of names in a cross-cultural context. Roadside memorials as a pivotal healing strategy are the topic of chapter 11. Chapters 12 and 13 focus on spiritual experience with loss.The final chapter presents some conclusions, and in the Epilogue, Mary Ann Morgan honors the life, career, dying, death, and achievements of John (Jack) Morgan. The 'Final Word' includes the words of Pittu Laungani, from a book published just weeks before his death in February 2007.This work is for anyone interested in or working in death and bereavement issues, particularly academics, educators, librarians, chaplains, clergy, funeral service directors, hospice care providers and volunteers, palliative care providers, nurses, immigration officers, psychologists, social workers, psychotherapists, and counselors, especially bereavement counselors.

This final volume of ""Death and Bereavement Around the World"" reflects on some major themes: death and after-life, religion and spirituality, rites and rituals, secularist approaches, cultural variations, suicide, and other issues. The first few chapters describe progress in end-of-life care, including some new tools to evaluate hospice care (chapter 1); what children know, when they know it, and how parents can respond to questions, with some guidelines for support by schools (chapter 2); the importance of ritual (chapter 3); and, gender differences in death customs around the world (chapter 4).The transcript of a 1997 interview of John (Jack) Morgan by Pittu Laungani is presented as chapter 5. The following chapters discuss death systems and suicide (chapter 6); HIV/AIDS, including the role of cultural and economic factors in the spread of the disease (chapter 7); and grief and bereavement in the developing world, taking the AIDS pandemic as a specific challenge (chapter 8). Chapter 9 covers issues related to dying and death in Romania. In chapter 10 the focus is on the various functions and uses of names in a cross-cultural context. Roadside memorials as a pivotal healing strategy are the topic of chapter 11. Chapters 12 and 13 focus on spiritual experience with loss.The final chapter presents some conclusions, and in the Epilogue, Mary Ann Morgan honors the life, career, dying, death, and achievements of John (Jack) Morgan. The 'Final Word' includes the words of Pittu Laungani, from a book published just weeks before his death in February 2007.This work is for anyone interested in or working in death and bereavement issues, particularly academics, educators, librarians, chaplains, clergy, funeral service directors, hospice care providers and volunteers, palliative care providers, nurses, immigration officers, psychologists, social workers, psychotherapists, and counselors, especially bereavement counselors.

Migrant Deaths in the Arizona Desert addresses the tragic results of government policies on immigration. The contributors consist of a multidisciplinary group who are dedicated to the thousands of men, women, and children who have lost their lives while crossing the desert in search of a better life. Each chapter in this important new volume seeks answers to migrant deaths, speaking to the complexity of this tragedy via a range of community and scholarly approaches. The activists, artists, and scholars included in this volume confront migrant deaths and disappearances in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands as they reflect on the startling realities of death, migration, and public policy.Chapters touch on immigration and how it is studied, community responses to crisis, government policy, definitions of citizenship, and the role of the arts and human expression in response to state violence. Collectively the contributions throw a spotlight on the multivocal, transdisciplinary efforts to address the historical silence surrounding this human tragedy. Despite numerous changes in the migration processes and growing attention to the problem, many people who attempt border crossings continue to disappear and die. This book offers a timely exploration of the ways that residents, scholars, activists, and artists are responding to this humanitarian crisis on their doorstep.

Have you ever had to decide what to do with an unidentified corpse by a Devonian cowshed when the herd is due in for milking? And how would you react if one of your patients was abducted by aliens? If you are a GP it seems these are routine matters. From coping with the suicide of a colleague to the unusual whereabouts of a jar of Coleman's mustard, this is the story of one rural doctor's often misguided attempts to make sense of the career in which he has unwittingly found himself. Dr Sparrow's adventures would be utterly unbelievable were they not 100% true stories. His bedside manner may sometimes leave a little to be desired but, if you're in dire straits, this doctor will have you in stitches.

"Existential and Spiritual Issues in Death Attitudes "provides:
*an in-depth examination of death attitudes, existentialism, and spirituality and their relationships; *a review of the major theoretical models; *clinical applications of these models to issues such as infertility, bereavement, anxiety, and suicide; and *an introduction to Meaning Management Theory and how it can be applied to grief counseling.
In this new volume, death is treated both as a threat to meaning "and" as an opportunity to create meaning. The first section introduces theory and methodology to connect the latest empirical research on death attitudes to the philosophical/psychological existential and spirituality literature. Part II presents the latest empirical research on subjects such as end-of-life decisions and living with HIV. The final section considers therapeutic applications to issues including suicide, infertility, bereavement, and anxiety. The concluding chapter highlights the book's common themes and provides questions to encourage further investigation of the most critical topics.
Psychologists, counselors, social workers, physicians, nurses, and religious leaders, as well as academics in the fields of psychology, gerontology, philosophy, religion, counseling, social work, sociology, and medicine will value this new resource. Main points summarize important ideas of each chapter, making it an appropriate text in courses on death and dying and/or and spirituality. Its clinical applications will appeal to practicing professionals.

"Existential and Spiritual Issues in Death Attitudes "provides:
*an in-depth examination of death attitudes, existentialism, and spirituality and their relationships; *a review of the major theoretical models; *clinical applications of these models to issues such as infertility, bereavement, anxiety, and suicide; and *an introduction to Meaning Management Theory and how it can be applied to grief counseling.
In this new volume, death is treated both as a threat to meaning "and" as an opportunity to create meaning. The first section introduces theory and methodology to connect the latest empirical research on death attitudes to the philosophical/psychological existential and spirituality literature. Part II presents the latest empirical research on subjects such as end-of-life decisions and living with HIV. The final section considers therapeutic applications to issues including suicide, infertility, bereavement, and anxiety. The concluding chapter highlights the book's common themes and provides questions to encourage further investigation of the most critical topics.
Psychologists, counselors, social workers, physicians, nurses, and religious leaders, as well as academics in the fields of psychology, gerontology, philosophy, religion, counseling, social work, sociology, and medicine will value this new resource. Main points summarize important ideas of each chapter, making it an appropriate text in courses on death and dying and/or and spirituality. Its clinical applications will appeal to practicing professionals.