Grief, Mourning and Death Ritual

by Hockey, Jenny

• ISBN13: 9780335205011
• ISBN10: 0335205011
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-01-01
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Summary

This book focuses on what happens after a death has taken place. Drawing on social theory and anthropology, contributors examine responses to death as they occur within the unique set of cultural, social and historical circumstances which characterizes post-war society. The book does not just document and make sense of contemporary practices but also critically reviews the ways grief, mourning and death ritual have been approached by academics and practitioners in the field. It does this by combining substantial reviews with shorter illustrative examples of grief, mourning and death ritual as they are manifest in specific settings and with defined groups. These illustrative examples include personal and institutional responses to death at different points in the life cycle, and responses to different sorts of death - the death of children and death in disasters for example. The examples include commentaries on bereavement work and on changes in both the funeral industry and memorialization practices.Grief, Mourning and Death Ritual is aimed at advanced students in sociology, anthropology and psychology with an interest in death, dying and mortality. It is also directly relevant to those concerned with loss and how to respond to it. The book is therefore suitable for use on courses in nursing, palliative care, social work and counselling.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	vii
Series editor's preface	xi
Acknowledgements	xiii
Introduction	1	(18)
Jeanne Katz
Part I
Theories of grief: a critical review	19	(30)
Neil Small
Is grief an illness? Issues of theory in relation to cultural diversity and the grieving process	49	(12)
Caroline Currer
Four siblings' perspectives on parent death: a family focus	61	(12)
Miriam S. Moss
Sidney Z. Moss
`Naturalizing' death among older adults in residential care	73	(9)
Carol Komaromy
Jenny Hockey
Just an old-fashioned love song or a `harlequin romance'? Some experiences of widowhood	82	(15)
Jane Littlewood
Part II
Discourse into practice: the production of bereavement care	97	(28)
Neil Small
Jenny Hockey
The skills we need: bereavement counselling and governmentality in England	125	(10)
Arnar Arnason
`You have to get inside the person' or making grief private: image and metaphor in the therapeutic reconstruction of bereavement	135	(9)
Michael Anderson
Supporting bereaved children at school	144	(14)
Jeanne Katz
The Child Death Helpline	158	(16)
Jean Simons
A place for my child: the evolution of a candle service	174	(9)
Jo Heslop
Part III	183	(84)
Changing death rituals	185	(27)
Jenny Hockey
Funeral ritual past and present	212	(6)
Phil Gore
Forget me not: memorialization in cemerteries and crematioria	218	(8)
Mary Bradhury
The cemetery: the evidence of continuing bonds	226	(11)
Doris Francis
Leonie Kellaher
Georgina Neophyton
Hindu death and mourning rituals: the impact of geographic mobility	237	(10)
Shirley Firth
Grieving in public	247	(9)
Glennys Howarth
Post-disaster rituals	256	(11)
Anne Eyre
Conclusion	267	(7)
Jeanne Katz
Useful organizations and addresses	274	(2)
Index	276