cover image Life After Loss: The Lessons of Grief

Life After Loss: The Lessons of Grief

Vamik D. Volkan, Elizabeth Zintl. Scribner Book Company, $19 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-684-19574-2

``The power of unsolved grief'' may come not only from death but from change and the pain of losing even that which has caused unhappiness, contends Univeristy of Virginia Medical Center psychiatrist Volkan. Writing with freelancer Zintl and drawing on his own experience and that of others, such as the ``complicated'' mourning undergone by those close to AIDS victims, Volkan traces bereaved people's progress from denial to acceptance and the necessary ``work of mourning'' meant to prepare them for reimmersion in life. Therapeutic measures for the bereaved and the people who seek to help them conclude this original and not overly technical approach to surviving grief. (Apr.)