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The academic study of death rose to prominence during the 1960s. Courses on some aspect of death and dying can now be found at most institutions of higher learning. However, these courses tend to stress the psycho-social aspects of grief and bereavement, ignoring the religious elements inherent to the subject. This book addresses the teaching of courses on death and dying from a religious studies perspective. The book is divided into seven sections. The hope is that this book will help to unify a field that is now widely scattered across several disciplines.

Recent years have seen increasing interest in the needs of children facing bereavement, and a corresponding increase in services to support them. This book addresses and explains the theoretical concepts and practical implications behind the idea of brief work with bereaved children and families. Flexible and accessible short-term services delivered at the right time underpin the strengths of bereaved children, supporting their recovery rather than pathologizing the grief process. In this way the book also speaks to the current interest in the concept of resilience and working with families' strengths and possibilities, rather than merely identifying their problems. This second edition of the text within the growing field of childhood bereavement contains new chapters that discuss managing situations with learning disability, supporting very young children and emotional literacy. The book also presents cases from the service user's perspective. It looks at different approaches to intervention, such as the importance of assessment and the value of group work, and also covers work with children and families before a death. The editors have more than twenty-five years experience as practitioners within the field, as service providers and educators. The book features chapters from contributors with backgrounds in healthcare, education, social work, and the police, alongside theoretical and practice-based chapters from workers in the field of bereavement care for children.

Patient participation and user involvement are central to current thinking about the effective delivery of desired healthcare outcomes. Working with the person who lies behind every patient is core to palliative care. A voice can only become significant when it is listened to and acted upon. With palliative care increasingly addressing the needs of people with a variety of conditions in a range of settings, as well as with advances in research, technology, and information, the challenge to be ‘a voice for the voiceless’ is greater than ever. This book addresses key aspects in the provision of patient-centered palliative care and tracks significant developments in user involvement. It sets the philosophy within the cultural, social, and political context of modern healthcare, particularly addressing issues of quality, standards, education, and bereavement. A key component in the delivery of high-quality palliative care is the multi-professional team. Following a discussion of teamwork, five core professions present a critical analysis of their working practices. The book concludes with a commentary from a palliative care user and a bereaved carer. It is often somewhat glibly asserted that the patient is, or should be, at the centre of care. There have been few attempts to examine how to keep him or her there without professional needs and protocols crowding him or her out. This book asks how we listen and why we listen, and focuses on the challenges of how professionals can keep the needs of the patient central in clinical care.

This book promotes an understanding of grieving persons, emphasizes respect for their individuality, encourages active coping, and guides those who help bereaved persons. The author argues that grieving is not a clinical problem to be solved or managed by others; rather, grieving is a normal process of relearning the world (physical surroundings, relationships with others (including the deceased and God), and oneself) in the aftermath of loss. The author utilizes real life stories to illustrate the power of the idea of relearning the world.

Based on forty years' interviewing experience, this book illustrates the variety of religious, spiritual, and other beliefs held by older people. It provides models of research procedure, especially in the context of bereavement. Participants include not only British Christians, but also Muslims, Humanists, and witnesses of the Soviet persecution of religion. The author argues that both welfare professionals and gerontologists need to pay far more consideration to belief as a constituent of well-being in later life. The book looks to the future and increasing diversity of choice in matters of belief among Britain and Europe's older citizens as a consequence of immigration and globalisation.

This is an important book on a very important and increasingly relevant subject for all who are involved in any way with palliative and End of Life Care. It is about the realities, messiness, uncertainties, contradictions, paradoxes and ambivalence that are part and parcel of living through advanced illness, dying and bereavement but also about what helps and heals. It is about responding to feelings, hopes, fears and stresses associated with major illness, often experienced by patients and their carers, both family and professional. The content is largely drawn from research and clinical experience as a psychotherapist and pastoral carer in bereavement counselling and palliative care. It is not about technical medical procedures. Its value lies in the highlighting of the non-technical role and presence of caregivers. The aim is to help carers in training both professional and volunteer or who are already in practice, to understand better the attitudes and behaviour of their patients or clients. It could also be of help to teachers and trainers in the field of hospice, palliative and bereavement care and to patients and their families and friends as they try to come to terms with their own situations and how they can cope better with them. The book reviews a range of responses to illness and loss, the challenges posed to countless patients, relatives and carers and the support both personal and organisational. It is written in an accessible style using many stories shared with the authors. This publication offers an inspiring way for people in contemporary society to review death as part of life. (263 words)

In early modern Europe it has been estimated that up to one in two children did not survive to the age of ten. In the light of this high mortality rate, some historians have argued that parents did not form close relationships with their children, especially the very young. This is clearly refuted by the testimony of bereaved parents such as Martin Luther, and by the volume of consolatory writings produced for grieving families in early modern Lutheran Germany. The authors — clergymen and lay people — regarded grief as a deep wound which required treatment, and they applied the balm of consolation through sermons, tracts, and occasional poetry. This study analyses these writings, focusing particularly on the neglected genre of the epicedium (funeral poem). It asks how and why poetry was used to counter the affective impact of parental bereavement, and considers what makes it a suitable vehicle for consolation. The poems, which are analyzed against the contemporary theological, philosophical, and poetological background, are taken from Leichenpredigten (printed funeral booklets), as well as from collections by two contrasting poets, Paul Fleming (1609-40), an unmarried man who wrote to console others, and Margarethe Susanna von Kuntsch (1651-1717), who lost thirteen of her fourteen children.

From the dead body to the virtual body and from material memorials to virtual memorials, one thing is clear: the bodiless nature of memorialization of the dead across cultures. In postindustrial, Protestant, and capitalist societies such as the United States, this trend seems much more prominent and is moving at a faster rate than in the developing world. As globalization and industrialization increase, traditional cultural values and norms will be further eroded, and the trend toward bodiless memorialization will only intensify. Additionally, as the world's population and accompanying land scarcity issues continue to rise, the body as corpse will continue to disappear as countries look for new and innovative ways to dispose of the dead. Ultimately, the rise of memorialization is concurrent with the disappearance of the body. This book examines this disturbing trend, analyzing various types of memorialization and questioning the impetus behind these newly emerging forms of remembrance.