Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow

Drawing on psychoanalysis, literature, and personal experience, Necessary Losses is a philosophy for understanding and accepting life's inevitabilities. In this book, Judith Viorst turns her considerable talents to a serious and far-reaching subject: how we grow and change through the losses that are a certain and necessary part of life. She argues persuasively that through the loss of our mothers' protection, the loss of the impossible expectations we bring to relationships, the loss of our younger selves, and the loss of our loved ones through separation and death, we gain deeper perspective, true maturity, and fuller wisdom about life. She has written a book that is both life-affirming and life-changing.

Judith Viorst has written many books for children, including the classics Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and its sequels, and If I Were in Charge of the World and Other Stories. She is also the author of the bestseller Necessary Losses and Just in Case. A graduate of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, she has received various awards for her journalism and psychological writings. She lives with her husband, Milton, in Washington D.C.