Review by Choice Review
Shuchter (University of California, San Diego) was principal investigator of the San Diego Widowhood Project. As the culmination of that project, this excellent work adds an important focus on the death of a spouse to the burgeoning literature on bereavement. In this phenomenological study, poignant vignettes infuse theory with the life blood of 70 subjects (21 men and 49 women, ranging in age from 24 to 66). The time of data collection (one month after death to five years later) has produced a wealth of material on the variability of human experiences of death. A major asset of the book is the broad schematic conceptualization of the bereavement process. The author presents a valuable tool in the ``Table of Grief Related Experiences'' with percentages of subjects endorsing each item over time and a quantifiable adjustment quota. The therapeutic framework has six tasks of grief that correspond with six dimensions of grief. Shuchter discusses a number of topics that have received little previous coverage: the sexuality of widows; emotional control; sense of presence; widow relationship with parents, etc. He clarifies the question of the shape of normal grief and the forms of pathological grief. The compassionate attitude of the staff in the study explains the quality of the responses of subjects who were undergoing life's major stressor. Clinicians will find Shuchter's description of therapeutic interventions very helpful. General readers, upper-division undergraduates, and graduate students will find this book useful.-E.V. Phillips, Yale University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
