Bowlby, Foreword to the First Edition. Lifton, Foreword to the Fourth Edition. Acknowledgements. Introduction. The Cost of Commitment. The Broken Heart. Trauma. Attachment and Loss. Mitigation. Anger and Guilt. Changing the Assumptive World. Complicated Grief. Determinants of Grief I: Kinship, Gender and Age. Determinants of Grief II: Mode of Death. Determinants of Grief III: Personal Vulnerability. Determinants of Grief IV: Social, Religious and Cultural Influences. Helping the Bereaved I: Bereavement Support - History and Evaluation. Helping the Bereaved II: Types of Help for Types of Problem. Helping the Bereaved III: Sources of Help. Reactions to Other Types of Loss. Disasters. Appendices. Organisation in the UK and USA Offering Help to Bereaved People. Recommended Further Reading. References
Colin Murray Parkes is Consultant psychiatrist Emeritus at St Christopher's Hospice and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist to the Royal London Hospital and the Tavistock Clinic, London. He is Life President of Cruse Bereavement Care and in 1996 was awarded an OBE for services to bereaved people. Holly Prigerson is Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and Director, Centre for Psycho-oncology & Palliative Care Research, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, USA.
'I have been reading and learning from Colin Parkes' work on death, grief, and loss for more than a half century. During that time Parkes has emerged as the predominant world authority on the nature and consequences of bereavement' - Robert Jay Lifton, From the Foreword "Prigerson has brought her expertise in modern research methods and statistical analyses to the joint project, resulting in a book that is up-to-date, authoritative and enriched by the intergrational combination of an elder and a younger member of the tribe. I hope that readers and colleagues will be awarded with many more editions of this important work." - Ruth Malkinson, Bereavement Care Journal, 2011