Understanding Loss and Grief for Women

This book can enhance everyone's understanding of how women experience loss and grief, and how they transition to resolution. It is an invaluable resource to women and everyone who supports them-spouses, partners, and family members as well as community and government. Women's grief is often a complex phenomenon-a natural, normal experience, but one that can seriously impact everyone-female or male-at every stage of life. Understanding Loss and Grief for Women: A New Perspective on Their Pain and Healing provides a way to look at how women experience loss through the lens of their socially constructed roles, and in light of the theories and practice of grief therapy and support. The book begins by explaining the social construction of women's traditional, transitional, and modern/postmodern roles, and then addresses the social construction of grief theory and practice in past eras and modern society. Several case studies enable readers to see how social constructs shape women's responses to various causes of grief, such as the death of a spouse or partner, child, marriage (divorce), and career (retirement). The final section of the book examines the health impacts of grief, offers suggestions to ameliorate negative health impacts, and emphasizes how loss and grief for women can be used as opportunities for self-growth. This book serves all members of the general population as well as educators, academics, scientists, and students of disciplines such as psychology, psychotherapy, medicine, sociology, and women's studies. It will enable all women to better understand, deal with, and heal from their loss and grief experience. Male readers will empathize with what their spouses/partners, mothers, grandmothers, siblings, and friends are experiencing in loss and grief and understand how to support healthy transition through grief to resolution. The community at large and care providers will learn how to create a more nurturing and supportive environment for women's grief response.

Robert W. Buckingham, DrPH, is Professor of Public Health at the University of Michigan-Flint. Peggy A. Howard, PhD, holds a doctorate in policy and administration from the University of Alberta, Canada. Since 1994, she has been a private-sector consultant whose expertise lies in the design and implementation of multiyear, multilevel evaluations in health and social service sectors.

Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1 The Social Construction of Women's Roles (Traditional, Transitional, Modern/Postmodern) Chapter 2 The Social Construction of Grief Chapter 3 Women's Socially Constructed Grief Response Chapter 4 The Complexity of Grief Chapter 5 Factors Influencing Grief Response Chapter 6 Death of a Spouse or Partner: A Widow's Grief Chapter 7 Death of a Marriage: Divorce Grief Chapter 8 Death of a Child: A Mother's Loss and Grief Chapter 9 Retirement Loss and Grief Chapter 10 Health Impacts of Grief Chapter 11 Beginnings and Reconciliations Appendix: Summary of Feminist Movements References Index