Love and Loss

The Roots of Grief and its Complications

Colin Murray Parkes author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:12th Sep '08

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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Love and Loss cover

Loving and grieving are two sides of the same coin: we cannot have one without risking the other. Only by understanding the nature and pattern of loving can we begin to understand the problems of grieving. Conversely, the loss of a loved person can teach us much about the nature of love.

Love and Loss, the result of a lifetime's work, has important implications for the study of attachment and bereavement. In this volume, Colin Murray Parkes reports his innovative research that enables us to bring together knowledge of childhood attachments and problems of bereavement, resulting in a new way of thinking about love, bereavement and other losses. Areas covered include:

  • patterns of attachment and grief
  • loss of a parent, child or spouse in adult life
  • social isolation and support.

The book concludes by looking at disorders of attachment and considering bereavement in terms of its implications on love, loss, and change in a wider context.

Illuminating the structure and focus of thinking about love and loss, this book sheds light on a wide range of psychological issues. It will be essential reading for professionals working with bereavement, as well as graduate students of psychology, psychiatry, and sociology.

"...clear, packed with information, and very humane."-ACP North London Magazine

"This is a beautifully written book, combining thoughtful analysis of research data with clinical case examples that bring to life and deepen the ideas Parkes is exploring... It goes without saying this is an essential volume for those practitioners working with the bereaved; it will also be of particular relevance to those interested in Attachment Theory, and there are many riches here for the general reader."- Ken Blythin, Counselling Psychotherapy and Research, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2010


"Parkes, whose seminal Love and Loss: The Roots of Grief and its Complications (2006) manages to be both academic and written in prose that dances with love around the subject."- Bel Mooney, The Times

"... an essential reference for all practitioners working directly with bereavement and grief."- Colin Feltham, Therapy Today

"...destined to join Bereavement: Studies of Grief in Adult Life as another Parkes Classic."-Omega

"...clear, packed with information and very humane." - ACP North London Magazine

"This is a beautifully written book, combining thoughtful analysis of research data with clinical case examples that bring to life and deepen the ideas Parkes is exploring... It goes without saying this is an essential volume for those practitioners working with the bereaved; it will also be of particular relevance to those interested in Attachment Theory, and there are many riches here for the general reader."- Ken Blythin, Counselling Psychotherapy and Research, Vol. 10, No. 1, March 2010

ISBN: 9780415477185

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 830g

448 pages