For some, life's introduction to death and grief comes early, and when it does it can take many forms. Not only does Dealing with Dying, Death, and Grief during Adolescence tackle them all, it does so with David Balk's remarkable sensitivity to and deep knowledge of the pressures and opportunities adolescents face in their transition from childhood to adulthood. In seamless, jargon-free language, Balk brings readers up to date with what we know about adolescent development, because over time such changes form the backstory we need to comprehend the impact of death and bereavement in an adolescent's life. The book's later chapters break down the recent findings in the study of life-threatening illness and bereavement during adolescence. And, crucially, these chapters also examine interventions that assist adolescents coping with these difficulties. Clinicians will come away from this book with both a grounded understanding of adolescent development and the adolescent experience of death, and they'll also gain specific tools for helping adolescents cope with death and grief on their own terms. For any clinician committed to supporting adolescents facing some of life's most difficult experiences, this integrated, up-to-date, and deeply insightful text is simply the book to have. David E. Balk is professor in the department of health and nutrition sciences at Brooklyn College (CUNY), where he directs the graduate program in thanatology. He is the author of Adolescent Development: Early Through Late Adolescence, Helping the Bereaved College Student, and several other books on death and bereavement. He is also co-editor of the 2nd edition of the Handbook of Thanatology (Routledge, 2013).

The intent of Death and Ethnicity emphasizes that death occurs to us as unique individuals living within particular sociocultural settings. Those who provide and plan services need to recognize both the differences among groups and the differences among individuals within these groups; and to provide options for those representative of their group as well as for those whose wants and needs are atypical. This book is valuable for those who plan projects, programs, courses, and services concerned with death and bereavement, and those who fund, plan, direct, and perform those services.

One of the unspoken aspects of mourning concerns the ways that loss affects our intimate relationships and our sexual expressiveness. This text opens these subjects for conversation, with the aim of promoting the trust, care, and respect that enable us to be vulnerable. It purposefully covers a range of topics, including: (1) the meaning of intimacy and the significance of sexuality, providing a basis for the use of these terms throughout the book; (2) death, grief, and differences in sexual orientation, including death and intimacy in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community and the losses endured by young people due to gender issues; (3) loss of relationship and restoration of intimacy in families, including pharmacological effects on the grief processes of widowers; grieving a not-so-loved parent; the "layered losses" of infertility and intimacy; and the tolls of war--intimacy and sexuality challenges for soldiers and their families; (4) adjusting to life's losses associated with aging or illness or infirmity, including Alzheimer's and dementia-related illnesses, physical health losses after 50, and intimacy, sex, and hospice--self-determination and dignity at the end of life; and (5) religious bases that have shaped our perspectives for understanding intimacy, sexuality, and healing after loss, and which give us hope--including the spiritual reflections of a rabbi and a Christian voice in defining what is right. Set in a framework that is both psychological and spiritual, the well-researched contributions are intended to acknowledge these experiences both professionally and personally. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography, valuable for research and reference. This book will be of value in undergraduate and graduate courses on thanatology, as well as for anyone interested in knowing more about grief--both those currently bereaved and those who wish to support others in mourning. The contributors appreciate both the importance of our capacities for intimacy and sexuality and our inhibitions and hesitations in giving voice to our needs and concerns, perhaps especially when we are grieving. The information and compassionate understanding they provide encourage us to bridge the gap between the secret and the private and to share what is close to our hearts.

One of the unspoken aspects of mourning concerns the ways that loss affects our intimate relationships and our sexual expressiveness. This text opens these subjects for conversation, with the aim of promoting the trust, care, and respect that enable us to be vulnerable. It purposefully covers a range of topics, including: (1) the meaning of intimacy and the significance of sexuality, providing a basis for the use of these terms throughout the book; (2) death, grief, and differences in sexual orientation, including death and intimacy in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community and the losses endured by young people due to gender issues; (3) loss of relationship and restoration of intimacy in families, including pharmacological effects on the grief processes of widowers; grieving a not-so-loved parent; the "layered losses" of infertility and intimacy; and the tolls of war--intimacy and sexuality challenges for soldiers and their families; (4) adjusting to life's losses associated with aging or illness or infirmity, including Alzheimer's and dementia-related illnesses, physical health losses after 50, and intimacy, sex, and hospice--self-determination and dignity at the end of life; and (5) religious bases that have shaped our perspectives for understanding intimacy, sexuality, and healing after loss, and which give us hope--including the spiritual reflections of a rabbi and a Christian voice in defining what is right. Set in a framework that is both psychological and spiritual, the well-researched contributions are intended to acknowledge these experiences both professionally and personally. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography, valuable for research and reference. This book will be of value in undergraduate and graduate courses on thanatology, as well as for anyone interested in knowing more about grief--both those currently bereaved and those who wish to support others in mourning. The contributors appreciate both the importance of our capacities for intimacy and sexuality and our inhibitions and hesitations in giving voice to our needs and concerns, perhaps especially when we are grieving. The information and compassionate understanding they provide encourage us to bridge the gap between the secret and the private and to share what is close to our hearts.

The Disenfranchised: Stories of Life and Grief When an Ex-Spouse Dies offers an unprecedented anthology of never-before-published, first-person life histories by ex-spouses whose grief has endured as disenfranchised: socially unacknowledged, untold, and unrecognised. Each story of disenfranchised grief is fiercely honest and courageously made public. This anthology has no parallels in current texts, academic literature or mainstream publications. Contributors present personal histories, revealing that the dimensions of disenfranchised grief are as individual as the writers who have endured this neglected aspect of grief and bereavement. In many narratives, the healing power of their creative processes through art and poetry is further revealed. The anthology is compiled and edited by Peggy Sapphire, MS (Guidance and Counseling), a writer living in Vermont. Over the span of five years, through phone conversations and written communications, Ms. Sapphire established trusting relationships with the contributors, who, though choosing to submit their work, often struggled with reluctance, even dread, at revisiting previously private events in their lives and finally committing their stories to paper, and ultimately to publication. Each narrative is accompanied by a clinical commentary, written by Shirley Scott, MS, certified Thanatologist, which provides readers, whether academic, practitioner, student, or lay, with reflections on the issues and patterns of disenfranchised grief, as reflected by each narrative. Included in each commentary are bibliographic references for further and advanced study. The contributors represent an extraordinary range of professional achievements and academic credentials--well-published writers, poets, working artists, educators, academics, mental health practitioners, and health professionals.

The Disenfranchised: Stories of Life and Grief When an Ex-Spouse Dies offers an unprecedented anthology of never-before-published, first-person life histories by ex-spouses whose grief has endured as disenfranchised: socially unacknowledged, untold, and unrecognised. Each story of disenfranchised grief is fiercely honest and courageously made public. This anthology has no parallels in current texts, academic literature or mainstream publications. Contributors present personal histories, revealing that the dimensions of disenfranchised grief are as individual as the writers who have endured this neglected aspect of grief and bereavement. In many narratives, the healing power of their creative processes through art and poetry is further revealed. The anthology is compiled and edited by Peggy Sapphire, MS (Guidance and Counseling), a writer living in Vermont. Over the span of five years, through phone conversations and written communications, Ms. Sapphire established trusting relationships with the contributors, who, though choosing to submit their work, often struggled with reluctance, even dread, at revisiting previously private events in their lives and finally committing their stories to paper, and ultimately to publication. Each narrative is accompanied by a clinical commentary, written by Shirley Scott, MS, certified Thanatologist, which provides readers, whether academic, practitioner, student, or lay, with reflections on the issues and patterns of disenfranchised grief, as reflected by each narrative. Included in each commentary are bibliographic references for further and advanced study. The contributors represent an extraordinary range of professional achievements and academic credentials--well-published writers, poets, working artists, educators, academics, mental health practitioners, and health professionals.

"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 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.

A wonderfully quixotic, charming and surprisingly uplifting travelogue which sees Jack Cooke, author of the much-loved The Treeclimbers Guide, drive around the British Isles in a clapped-out forty-year old hearse in search of famous - and not so famous - tombs, graves and burial sites. Along the way, he launches a daredevil trespass into Highgate Cemetery at night, stumbles across the remains of the Welsh Druid who popularised cremation and has time to sit and ponder the imponderables at the graveside of the Lady of Hoy, an 18th century suicide victim whose body was kept in near condition by the bog in which she was buried. A truly unique, beautifully written and wonderfully imagined book.

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.

Death and Dying is an important core text for students and professionals interested in developing a holistic understanding of death and dying. Chapters are replete with case studies, activities, key point boxes, and other features that enable readers to develop a sociologically informed understanding of the broad range of complex issues that underpin death and dying. Written by two established and highly respected experts in the field, it offers a thoroughgoing account of a wide range of social aspects of death and dying, filling gaps left by the traditionally narrow focus of the existing literature. By drawing the suggested sociological perspectives and highlighting the role of social policy, the authors put forward a fresh perspective of the field of thanatology. This book is a major contribution in progressing knowledge and understanding of dying and death for students and professionals in counseling, health and human services.

'This book may on first glance appear to be about death and regrets, but is in reality about life and choices. It is warmly life-affirming ... A magnificent read that will inspire. I loved it' Sue Black 'So beautiful ... Perfectly written and judged ... A wonderful book that made me grasp life a little more firmly' Dr Chris van Tulleken A powerful, moving and hopeful book exploring what people regret most when they are dying and how this can help us lead a better life. If you were told you were going to die tomorrow, what would you regret? Ten years ago, without time to think or prepare, Georgina Scull ruptured internally. The doctors told her she could have died and, as Georgina recovered, she began to consider the life she had led and what she would have left behind. Paralysed by a fear of wasting what seemed like precious time but also fully ready to learn how to spend her second chance, Georgina set out to meet others who had faced their own mortality or had the end in sight.

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.

Promoting Resilience offers a fresh perspective that views resilience through a sociological lens, emphasizing the significance of loss issues and highlighting a range of practice implications across a wide range of fields. Drawing on the expertise of a wide range of contributors, the book provides a solid foundation for developing a fuller and more holistic picture of the many challenges associated with promoting resilience. Chapters present a range of sociological perspectives that cast light on trauma and vulnerability. Combining theoretical richness with practical insights, chapter authors bring a sociological lens to enrich understanding of loss and adversity. This volume offers a bedrock of understanding for students, clinicians, and researchers who want to extend and deepen their knowledge of the sociological aspects of overcoming life challenges.

A Columbia University physician comes across a popular medieval text on dying well written after the horror of the Black Plague and discovers ancient wisdom for rethinking death and gaining insight today on how we can learn the lost art of dying well in this wise, clear-eyed book that is as compelling and soulful as Being Mortal, When Breath Becomes Air, and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. As a specialist in both medical ethics and the treatment of older patients, Dr. L. S. Dugdale knows a great deal about the end of life. Far too many of us die poorly, she argues. Our culture has overly medicalized death: dying is often institutional and sterile, prolonged by unnecessary resuscitations and other intrusive interventions. We are not going gently into that good night--our reliance on modern medicine can actually prolong suffering and strip us of our dignity. Yet our lives do not have to end this way. Centuries ago, in the wake of the Black Plague, a text was published offering advice to help the living prepare for a good death. Written during the late Middle Ages, ars moriendi--The Art of Dying--made clear that to die well, one first had to live well and described what practices best help us prepare. When Dugdale discovered this Medieval book, it was a revelation. Inspired by its holistic approach to the final stage we must all one day face, she draws from this forgotten work, combining its wisdom with the knowledge she has gleaned from her long medical career. The Lost Art of Dying is a twenty-first century ars moriendi, filled with much-needed insight and thoughtful guidance that will change our perceptions. By recovering our sense of finitude, confronting our fears, accepting how our bodies age, developing meaningful rituals, and involving our communities in end-of-life care, we can discover what it means to both live and die well. And like the original ars moriendi, The Lost Art of Dying includes nine black-and-white drawings from artist Michael W. Dugger. Dr. Dugdale offers a hopeful perspective on death and dying as she shows us how to adapt the wisdom from the past to our lives today. The Lost Art of Dying is a vital, affecting book that reconsiders death, death culture, and how we can transform how we live each day, including our last.

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.

With an aging population, declining marriage and childbirth rates, and a rise in single households, more Japanese are living and dying alone. Many dead are no longer buried in traditional ancestral graves where descendants would tend their spirits, and individuals are increasingly taking on mortuary preparation for themselves. In Being Dead Otherwise Anne Allison examines the emergence of new death practices in Japan as the old customs of mortuary care are coming undone. She outlines the proliferation of new industries, services, initiatives, and businesses that offer alternative means---ranging from automated graves, collective gravesites, and crematoria to one-stop mortuary complexes and robotic priests---for tending to the dead. These new burial and ritual practices provide alternatives to the long-standing traditions of burial and commemoration of the dead. In charting this shifting ecology of death, Allison outlines the potential of these solutions to radically reorient sociality in Japan in ways that will impact how we think about the end of life, identity, tradition, and culture in Japan and beyond.

Funerary Practices in Serbia is the first book to offer a concise yet highly informative study of the historical development and current state of funerary practices in Serbia. Situated in a constant dynamic struggle between traditional cultural customs and modern legislation, funerary practices in Serbia represent a particularly interesting field of research. In this study, Pavicevic combines an investigation of long-term developments and recent changes to place contemporary practices in their wider historical context, emphasizing the complicated geo-political, demographic and cultural factors that have shaped funeral traditions in Serbia over time. In particular, she demonstrates how the country's frequent changing of borders and life under the rule of two great empires - the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman - fostered the emergence of colorful funerary traditions, such as open-casket burial and vigils around the body, that persist to this day in spite of government attempts to modernize funerary practice since the end of the 19th century. The book also provides illuminating insights into the legal framework surrounding current funerary practices in Serbia, the relationship between the state and private sectors, the ownership of cemeteries and gravesites, the role of churches and religious communities, religious and ethnic variations in funerary culture and traditions, and the development of modern cremation practices in Serbia. This book provides a useful and original resource for policymakers and practitioners interested in the historic, legal, technical and professional aspects of the Serbian funerary industry, and to researchers in cultural anthropology, history, sociology and cultural management.

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.

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.

Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires charts in vivid detail the largely forgotten history of European corpse medicine, which saw kings, ladies, gentlemen, priests and scientists prescribe, swallow or wear human blood, flesh, bone, fat, brains and skin in an attempt to heal themselves of epilepsy, bruising, wounds, sores, plague, cancer, gout and depression. In this comprehensive and accessible text, Richard Sugg shows that, far from being a medieval therapy, corpse medicine was at its height during the social and scientific revolutions of early-modern Britain, surviving well into the eighteenth century and, amongst the poor, lingering stubbornly on into the time of Queen Victoria. Ranging from the execution scaffolds of Germany and Scandinavia, through the courts and laboratories of Italy, France and Britain, to the battlefields of Holland and Ireland, and on to the tribal man-eating of the Americas, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires argues that the real cannibals were in fact the Europeans. Picking our way through the bloodstained shadows of this remarkable secret history, we encounter medicine cut from bodies living and dead, sacks of human fat harvested after a gun battle, gloves made of human skin, and the first mummy to appear on the London stage. Lit by the uncanny glow of a lamp filled with human blood, this second edition includes new material on exo-cannibalism, skull medicine, the blood-drinking of Scandinavian executions, Victorian corpse-stroking, and the magical powers of candles made from human fat. In our quest to understand the strange paradox of routine Christian cannibalism we move from the Catholic vampirism of the Eucharist, through the routine filth and discomfort of early modern bodies, and in to the potent, numinous source of corpse medicine's ultimate power: the human soul itself. Now accompanied by a companion website with supplementary articles, interviews with the author, related images, summaries of key topics, and a glossary, the second edition of Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires is an essential read for anyone interested in the history of medicine, early modern history, and the darker, hidden past of European Christendom.

This book offers the first comprehensive study of Czech funerary practices to be published in English. It provides an in-depth account of the historical development of funeral traditions and customs in the Czech Lands from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. Czech funerary practice is today characterised by a very high cremation rate, the predominance of secular funerals and the increasing popularity of cremation with no funeral ceremony. Combining investigation of both long-term developments and recent changes, this book places these contemporary practices in their wider historical context, highlighting the complicated religious, political and cultural factors that have influenced funeral traditions over time. Nesporova draws attention to the extent to which the turbulent political background of the 20th century shaped funerary culture, focusing particularly on the cremation movement and the increase in popularity of civil funerals during the Communist era. The book explores the contemporary legal framework of Czech funerary practices, the typical funeral, burial sites and commemorative practices and recent developments in Czech funerary practice. The book will appeal to a multi-disciplinary audience, including those working in the fields of cultural anthropology, history, sociology and architecture.

Infanticide, serial killings, war, terrorism, abortion, honour killings, euthanasia, suicide bombings and genocide; all involve taking of life. Put most simply, all involve killing one or more other people. Yet cultural context influences heavily how one perceives all of these, and indeed, some readers of this paragraph may already have thought: 'But surely that doesn't belong with those others, that's not really killing.'
Why We Kill examines violence in many of its manifestations, exploring how culture plays a role in people's understanding of violent action.
From the first chapter, which tries to understand multiple forms of domestic homicide including infanticide, filicide, spousal homicide and honour killings, to the final chapter's bone-chilling account of the massacre at Murambi in Rwanda, this fascinating book makes compelling reading.

Photography represents a medium in which the moment of death can be captured and preserved, the image becoming a mechanism through which audiences are beguiled by the certainty of their own mortality. Examining a spectrum of post-mortem images, Photography and Death considers various ways in which the death image has been framed and what these styles communicate about changing social attitudes related to dying, mourning and the afterlife. Presenting a fresh perspective on how we might view death photography in the context of our contemporary cultural milieu, this book brings together a range of historical examples to create a richer narrative of how we see, understand and discuss death in both the private and public forum. Building upon existing publications which relate explicitly to the study of death, dying and cultures of mourning, the book discusses topics such as post-mortem portraiture, the Civil War, Spiritualism and lynching. These are positioned alongside contemporary representations of death, as seen in celebrity death images and forensic photography. Uncovering an important historical contrast, in which modern notions of death are a comment on ownership or an emotionless, clinical state, Harris highlights the various ways that the deceased body is a site of contestation and fascination. An engaging read for students and researchers with an interest in death studies, this book represents a unique account of the various ways that attitudes about death have been shaped through the photographic image.