Meaning Reconstruction & the Experience of Loss

Seventeen papers by psychologists, psychotherapists, and academics in philosophy and religious studies explore the diverse nature of grieving and the meaning-making that it involves. Individual topics include: understanding the responses to loss and trauma, posttraumatic growth, spiritual resources following a partner's death from AIDS, grief therapy as a process of meaning reconstruction, family construction of meaning, and meaning making in the dual process model of coping with bereavement. Neimeyer (psychology, U. of Memphis) has researched and written extensively on death from a constructivist or meaning-making perspective; he provides two essays here in addition to editing this collection. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)