ILLNESS, CRISIS & LOSS, Vol.

18(1) 83-92, 2010

Reviews

A short time ago the Dougy Center was destroyed by a fire of suspicious
origin. Under the leadership of Donna Schuurman, the Center has a well-
deserved worldwide respect as a premier innovator and provider for grieving
children and teens, their families and their providers. We must hold them
and support them so that this phoenix may rise up from the ashes. The fire
was “controlled” in the wee hours of the morning. As the day began no beat
was skipped. Their programs continued in temporary quarters. Visit their
website for details (dougy.org)

1. RESOURCES FOR AND ABOUT CHILDREN AND TEENS

Dedicated to the Dougy Center

When Death Walks In: For Teenagers Facing Grief, by M. Scrivani, Omaha:
Centering, 1991/2005. ISBN: 1-56123-012-X. Centering.org.
Scrivani is a psychiatric social worker who has never lost sight of what it means to
be a kid. For years he has written the story (his Letters to Mark remain current and
clever), done the story (as a psychotherapist) and lived the story. This book, with a
new cover and some revisions, is still one of the best resources available for teens.
It is clever in its approach and appearance, inviting to teens without putting them
down and comforting to the not-quite-teens as their guide and friend.
Hope for Bereaved, a long running program in Syracuse (get to know them),
helped Mark go national. His other books are available through them. Subscribe to
their newsletter (send them a check!) includes a new two page Letter to Mark, which
you will want to add to your collection of resources. Check out their website.

Adolescent Encounters with Death, Bereavement, and Coping, edited by

D. Balk & C. Corr, New York: Springer, 2009.

Charles Corr and David Balk are well established experts on teens and grief. Balk
has done additional work on grief and college students. “Adolescent encounters
with death and bereavement, as well as efforts by adolescents to cope with these

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Ó 2010, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.

doi: 10.2190/IL.18.1.l
http://baywood.com
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encounters, frequently do not receive full-scale exploration.” This is based on

these essential points that we must keep in mind:

1. These issues are often subsumed into examinations of childhood experi-

ences, failing to examine the unique aspects of adolescence and adolescents
facing loss.
2. “While many investigators have recognized that adolescence in general
is a healthy time of life, one in which its members have escaped the
problems of early childhood but have not lived long enough to face the
problems of adulthood, they have incorrectly concluded that death-
related encounters during adolescence occur only in small and insignificant
numbers with little impact on the lives of adolescents involved” (p. xxi).

With this in mind, Corr and Balk offer “a robust focus on death, bereavement,
and coping during adolescence in its own right” (p. xxi), offering the familiar
issues of adolescents and loss, but also by providing a guide to the many providers
who are in a position to make a difference for grieving teens.
This project was introduced by these wise words from Kenneth Doka,
Death exists not only as a developmental recognition. It is an ongoing reality
in the lives of adolescents. Parents and siblings sometimes die. Adolescents
live with and sometimes die from life-threatening illnesses. Many of these
deaths—by accidents, suicide, or homicide—are both sudden and deeply
traumatic, complicating grief. Many adolescent losses, such as the deaths of
friends and celebrities, can be disenfranchised, ignored by others. Death,
these authors reaffirm, is not something just out there on the developmental
horizon; it is also in here, a present, often unrecognized event that adolescents
encounter. (p. xx)

The book is organized around four parts or themes, each with its many indi-
vidual contributions by others in the field. 1) Background (adolescent develop-
ment, young people making meaning in response to death and bereavement,
ethics and adolescent grief research: A developmental analysis); 2) Death
(adolescents, accidents, and homicides; adolescents and suicide, adolescents and
HIV/AIDS, adolescents living with life-threatening illnesses, adolescents, humor,
and death, adolescents, technology, and the internet; 3) Bereavement: life as an
adolescent when a parent has died, sibling bereavement during adolescence,
death of a friend during adolescence, adolescent bereavement over the deaths
of celebrities, adolescent bereavement and traumatic deaths; 4) Interventions:
Educating adolescents about death, bereavement, and coping, camps and support
groups for adolescents, psychotherapeutic approaches for adolescents with life-
threatening illnesses, counseling approaches for bereaved adolescents, therapy
for adolescents experiencing prolonged grief, and interventions for caregivers
suffering from compassion fatigue or burnout. Each chapter has concluding
remarks and references.
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The 1996 edition stands on its own merit. This new edition also stands on
its own merit. Add it to your professional library.

No Child Should Grieve Alone: A Guide for Parents, Caregivers & Pro-
fessionals, E. Parga, Reno: Solace Tree, 2007. ISBN: 978-1-56123-200-0.
Kids Can Cope: An Activity Book from Children for Children Who Are
Living with Change and Loss, E. Parga, Omaha: Centering, 2009. ISBN:
978-1-56123-209-3.

Parga’s abounding energy has captured a most important gift for children
and teens who grieve: “Let the experienced be the experts.” Working with many
in Reno, Parga has recognized the work children and teens, with trained care
and support from adults, can and do bring to young grievers.
His first book offers vital information for parents, caregivers and profes-
sionals. It could be basic stuff we all know . . . until we have to deal with kids
who are grieving. It is presented in a way that also touches our own sorrow.
Kids can cope is an activity book that engages us through our own develop-
mental levels, skills, and loss experiences. From cutouts to activities to words
to thoughts, this book will serve children of all ages.

Zach and His Dog: A Story of Bonding, Love, and Loss for Children and
Adults to Share Together, by D. Meagher, Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse,
2009. ISBN: 978-1-4389-4228-5.

The children’s storybook, The Pokey little puppy, has served generations of
children. On the last day of June, at P.S. 5, Staten Island, NY, decades ago,
a little puppy with white hair and big black spots, walked into my mother’s
classroom. Caught by surprise, she asked, “What shall we name him.” They
shouted in chorus, “Pokey!” He was our dog for 10 years, guiding me through
middle school, high school, college, and into seminary.
Pets (some insist on “animal companions”) are friends, guides, trusted coun-
selors, and much more. When they die, it is a real death with real feelings,
real issues, real questions, and real tears. The Zach and Freckles leap off the
pages because we are Zach and we all remember Freckles, Pokey, Blackie,
Sugar, Sam, Chio, Zig Zag, and Edna.
Meagher’s book is a treasure to be treasured.

Little Lucy’s Family: A Story about Adoption, by E. Gormally, Skokie, IL:

ACTA, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-879460373-1.

As one who was adopted, it can be a challenge that either blesses, curses or
some combination thereof, the one adopted and the family who welcomes them.
Some feelings seem common to most adoptions. All adoptions will benefit from
information and story.
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ACTA has long recognized the stories that come with life events and this
child’s book will serve well, identifying key issues and challenges and dispelling
misinformation.

Creative Interventions with Traumatized Children, edited by C. Malchiodi,

New York: Guilford, 2008. ISBN: 978-1-58375-615-1.

A cover quote says it well. “This comprehensive resource delivers everything

the title promises and more. Grounded in current trauma theory, the book
presents creative, evidence-based therapeutic approaches developed specifically
for children and adolescents” (Elizabeth Warson).
Capturing from the start that “Childhood is, and always has been, a vulnerable
time,” we have a rich ingathering of contributed pieces that bring us into the
raw, fragile arena of children traumatized by life events and behaviors.
The book has a rich collection of black and white sketches that are worth
the price of the book on its own merit. They speak when words fail. The 15
chapters are divided into four thematic groupings: Creative interventions and
children; Basics of practice; Creative interventions with individuals, Creative
interventions with families and groups, and Creative intervention as prevention.
The book has good reference information, organized by chapters.
2. CLINICAL APPROACHES: SPIRITUALITY, RELIGION,
MENTAL HEALTH, AND THE THERAPEUTIC PROCESS

Spirituality and the Therapeutic Process: A Comprehensive Resource from

Intake to Termination, edited by J. Aten & M. Leach, Washington, DC: The
American Psychological Association, 2009. ISBN: 978-1-4338-0373-4.

Judeo-Christian Perspectives on Psychology: Human Nature, Motivation,

and Change, edited by W. Miller & H. Delaney, Washington, DC: The
American Psychological Association, 2005. ISBN: 978-1-59147-161-5.

The gap between psychology and spirituality/religion has been an enormous

chasm that has further burdened clients and families, fed many bitter attitudes
toward religion and spiritual issues, and covered over the fact that many prac-
titioners have intentionally avoided these “neighborhoods” lest they be exposed
for not exploring these issues in their living and working.
APA offers us two outstanding books (Miller/Delaney in its second printing)
on this subject, anthologies of contributions on key issues, extensive resource
sections, useful tools and some openings through which clients/counselors and
counselors/religious leaders might dare to enter together.
The structure of chapters includes well researched and documented infor-
mation, story and data that fit well into the therapeutic engagement as well
as clear principles and guidelines for research and teaching. My one bias, as a
religious leader and a counselor, is that psychology does not take the place of
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religion any more than religion, often out of fear and ignorance, insists on taking
the place of the long-suspected psychology with sound biblical (and other)
principles. These kinds of territorial orthodoxy and fear, prevalent on both “sides,”
can only further hurt victims and compromise their pathway to healing.
Some of the themes covered by Aten and Leach include: A primer on spiritu-
ality and mental health, Ethical concerns around spirituality and religion in
clinical practice, Therapist self-awareness of spirituality, Noting the importance
of spirituality during clinical intake, Clinical assessment of clients’ spirituality,
How spirituality can affect the therapeutic alliance and Spirituality in therapy
termination. The tables, illustrations, lists and case studies are very, very helpful.
The references are extensive, although a common bibliography at the end would
eliminate the tedious restating of many titles.
Miller and Delaney offer an equally professional book that uses an enjoined
threading of the Judeo-Christian tradition to discern how they define human nature,
how they respond to it, how they motivate (“persuade”?) and affect change.
The 15 contributed essays are structured around these five themes: Foundations
and context, The nature of the human person, Motivation, virtues, and values,
Transformation, change and development, and Reflections. The discussion of
human sexuality often appears more sacred in this context than among many
religious leaders and traditions.
The reflections provide an “outside view” of the authors and their contributions.
It is an excellent approach to learning.

Partnered Grief, by H. I. Smith & J. Johnson, Omaha: Centering, 2008.

ISBN: 978-1-56123-203-1.

One reviewer wrote, “This book will serve the gay/lesbian community well,
even their family and friends. It might just turn the heads of a bigot or two.”
Another wrote, “Psychologically profound, spiritually insightful, wise, literate,
and humane, this compassionate ground-breaking book will change lives. A
tour de force.”
This book is gently honest, though pointing to key issues that dare not be
ignored, words of hope and courage, thanksgiving and forgiveness. In a mere
20 pages Harold Ivan Smith and Joy Johnson bring story to life, refusing labels
while embracing people. The book is very helpful and probably equally bless
the more traditional relationships.
3. ON THE LIGHTER SIDE (A NEW FEATURE)
Where are They Buried? How Did They Die? [Fitting Ends and Final Resting
Places of the Famous, Infamous, And Noteworthy], by T. Benoit, New York:
Black Dog & Leventhal, 2003. ISBN: 1-57912-287-6.

If you have been hunting for a book on unusual funerals (from many points
of view), then this book is for you. If it is out of print you can find it in book
sales, as I did or check on-line.
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Some of the interesting and not-so-interesting. That’s your call: Abbott &
Costello, John Wayne, The Beatles, Dizzy Dean, Iron Eyes Cody, Joan Crawford,
Errol Flynn, Alfred Hitchcock, The Lone Ranger & Tonto, Bela Lugosi, Gilda
Radner, The Three Stooges, Diana, Princess of Wales, Gertrude Stein & Alice B.
Toklas, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Mamas & the Papas, Lizzie Borden, Al Capone &
Elliott Ness, Jack Daniel, Billy Carter . . .

4. AT THE CINEMA
(Harold Ivan Smith)

Thanatologists will want to make room in their schedules to see two important
movies, Departures and World’s Greatest Dad.

Departures (2009)
Diago Kobayashi has a good life as a husband and as a cellist in a Tokyo
orchestra. When the orchestra goes bankrupt Diago cannot afford payments
on the cello that he thought would lead to upward mobility. He and his wife
make a decision to move back for a while to the small town where his deceased
mother has willed them her home, While reading the classifieds Diago finds a
job for “departures” which he assumes is in the travel industry. “I could do that
for a while.” Being back home is complicated because of memories of the father
who had deserted him as a child.
He is stunned to discover the ad was placed by a funeral home which conducts
the elaborate encoffinment rituals preparing unembalmed bodies for burial.
His wife leaves him when he will not give up his job.
The intricate procedures of dressing the body in beautiful robes while the
family watches brought the theater to an incredible silence. Throughout the film
beautiful cello music provides the background.
Diago, played by Masaruri Motoki, finds himself and meaningful work after
the crash of his musician career; in time he finds reconciliation with his long-
absent father and with his wife.
This stunning film won the 2009 Oscar for Best Foreign Picture.

World’s Greatest Dad

Robin Williams’ latest movie, a dark, dark comedy, explores topics significant
for the field of dying, death, and bereaving. As Lance Clayton, an English teacher/
novelist who cannot seem to get anything published, Robin single parents Kyle,
the world’s angriest adolescent, played masterfully by Daryl Sabara.
Unfortunately, Kyle dies as a result of autoerotic asphyxiation. Before calling
the police, Lance “decides” to draft a suicide note which totally re-scripts the
relationship with father, school, and life. Students at the high school want “more”
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details about this student they had teased and misunderstood, so the writer-father
spins segments of a journal. Lance shares the journal with the overambitious
grief counselor hired to reach the students who sees this death as a way to
promote his own career. The grief counselor self-publishes the journal and now
the entire high school becomes involved in the rescripting, including Lance’s
appearance on an equivalent of the Oprah Show and the renaming of the school
library in honor of Kyle.
As clinicians know, a rescripting of a life—or what Lopota called “the sanc-
tification of the dead”—can unravel is scrutinized closely. In this case, it is
Kyle’s “loser” friend who moans, “This doesn’t add up.” When it unravels, it
unravels. Lance Clayton earns the rage and scorn of the community for his
deception. However, in the process, he grasps the question, “Who am I now free
to be?” and jettisons any lingering fiction of the title as “world’s greatest dad.”
Stay for the film credits.
This amazing movie raises the troublesome issue of A.E.A. which will result
in the deaths of some 5,000 adolescent and young adult males this year. The
movie also focuses on rescripting of the dead which takes place far too often
in our culture and complicates grief. Jewish wisdom insists that the griever must
grieve for the real person. That is acknowledged in World’s Greatest Dad.
These reviews were provided by Richard B. Gilbert, PhD, CT,
reviews-editor, Illness, Crisis & Loss. He serves on the faculties
of Mercy College (New York), Benedictine University of Illinois and
The Graduate Theological Foundation. For consideration of a book
you would like reviewed or to receive any of his free bibliographies,
contact him directly at dick.gilbert@yahoo.com.
Also contact us if you would like to do a review.

Constructivist Psychotherapy: Distinctive Features, by Robert A. Neimeyer,

New York: Routledge, 2009.

Adventurers on the wagon trains, slowly making their way across the continent
westward to “a better life,” periodically had to lighten the load by discarding
items, sometimes valued ones. Early in Robert Neimeyer’s Constructivist Psycho-
therapy, he wisely notes that “forward movement” is “toward an uncertain
future” in which there is not room for keeping all of one’s constructs—however
much one has invested in it.
Counseling is a three-ringed arena: there is a past in which an incident or
experience occurred; there is a present in which that experience has been
interpreted; and a future in which that experience is resolved, reinterpreted,
or gathers momentum as a menace. Some individuals have been so wounded,
they cannot imagine, let alone seize or create, a future. So, a clinician who has
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helped others pursue a moving forward into a future now must help individuals
begin to future. Or to acknowledge that their experience—or more accurately,
their interpretation of that experience, may carry them into a future they will
not want.
Through his writing, teaching, and clinical care, Robert Neimeyer is a driving
force in constructivistic psychology. At the heart of this philosophy is the belief
that individuals “construct” meaning to their lives and to the individual com-
ponents that has made she or he a particular self at this present.
Unfortunately, in an era of managed care of quick and pressured “results,”
some are driven to make headway “quickly.” Some conclude that it is easier to stay
in their present understandings—and, in essence, to repack the psychological
“wagon,” than to risk investing in the hard work of constructing new meanings.
These individuals are like the child who wants to swim but clings tenaciously to
the safety of the edge of the pool. They may be wet but they have not swam.
Neimeyer acknowledges Kelly’s belief that “constructivists typically empha-
size the role of personal meanings in shaping people’s responses to the events
and regard human beings as capable of at least a bounded agency in determining
the course of their lives” (Neimeyer, p. 20, citing Kelly, 1955/1991).
Someone once categorized three categories of canoeists: the floaters, the
fighters and the navigators. I would borrow that analogy for individuals in clinical
care. The Floaters just float “through” counseling, hoping for something sig-
nificant to happen; they expect the clinician to do all—or at least most—of the
work. They show up physically but the clinician begins to suspect that a major
component is in escrow.
Fighters are individuals who fight the entire process; they arrive precisely at
the time of the session, with no previous attention given to reviewing the last
session or anticipating this session. The clinician detects an antagonism or an
unwillingness, sometimes disguised, to cooperate. The client may feel “dragged”
to the session by another individual for “fixing.”
Navigators are those rare counselees who come to realize the potential for
good in the process and who want the maximum out of the experience. Navi-
gators express gratitude for the process and for the insights they are discovering
from a guiding receptive clinician.
These categories overlap. In fact, a particular moment in the counseling
experience may cause a floater to turn fighter: “I don’t want to go there!”
Sometimes, it is simply the power of fear of future, or fear of psychological
nakedness, to be the glue in their constructs. This is at least unpredictable; again
resorting to the canoe mentality, I do not want to know—or be responsible—
for what is, or might be, around the psychological bend.
Maybe it would be easier to talk about the resisters and the responders.
Neimeyer points to the “the outer-directed, closed to experience, and conserva-
tive—and who view their problems or issues as discrete symptoms to be elimin-
ated.” What clinician has not had a parent or a spouse intimate, “Fix ‘em, doc”?
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I worry that some clinicians listen long enough to a client to begin mentally
fast-skimming the DSM. Thus the clinician cannot fully offer hospitality to the
narrative—or the portion of the narrative the client has chosen to disclose—
because the clinician is trying to first get the client into the right diagnostic box.
(Almost, like trying to shoot a cat into a cat cage.) Is it possible that they have
already been “fixed” once but did not stay fixed?
Neimeyer laments the clinicians who treat diagnoses rather than individuals.
As a reviewer—and one with a complex labyrinth of constructs of my own—
I was taken by two questions Neimeyer raised: “Was there something in your
past that has been of major importance for your life and that still plays an impor-
tant part today?” Or “Is there a goal or objective that you expect to play an
important role in your future life?”
To the first question, I want to ask, “How much time do you have?”
I would raise a potential third question: “What would it feel like to deconstruct
this meaning that you have carried so long that has blocked the attainment of a
new future?” Maybe it is good to have available for other things the space that
psychological wounds take up in our lives.
On a personal note, Robert Neimeyer’s books in my office end up with broken
spines. They are heavily underlined (in different inks from successive reads)
and usually, depending on the length of the book, require multiple highlighters.
Constructivist Psychotherapy will invite you to pull it from the shelf for
another “look see.” I was puzzled while rereading it for the review: “Why didn’t
I underline that the first time.”
Some of those individual wagons rolled into the future more forcefully because
they had been lightened.
Robert Neimeyer, again, has made a significant contribution to the literature
by crafting a readable, understandable book. Counseling, he reminds us, is about
interaction with this client and with this clinician with this particular issue at
this particular juncture in both lives. Clinicians are not there to “take away”
constructs but to graciously suggest, “There are other ways to pack the wagon.”
Not everyone who reached Oregon or California stayed put; not everyone who
started on the trails made the promised land. Some found spots and simply
abandoned the dream. But by the wisdom of learned experience they were able
to comment more clearly on the journey.
In the last paragraph Neimeyer concedes that constructivism, like all models of
psychotherapy, share a common practical goal: to improve the human condition.
I appreciated Robert mentioning the influence of three colleagues whose
“untimely deaths . . . deprived constructivism of three of its most memorable and
influential leaders . . . whose voices continue to echo in the halls of a theoretical
edifice they did so much to build.” Too often, the death of colleagues is an
“embargoed grief” in the field of thanatology. In the analogy of Irwin Yalom’s
Staring at the Sun, “though dead, they speak” and continue to make ripples
along the shorelines of psychological thought. Veteran clinicians who have seen
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this as, in Robert’s words, “philosophically abstruse and procedurally obscure,”

will find the concept must more attractively packaged in 30 short chapters, each
highlighting a distinctive feature—a gift if you will—of constructivism. And,
hopefully, a new generation of clinicians and grief educators will find the book
an invitation.
I worry about individuals who do not walk into a clinical setting as caring
as Robert Neimeyer’s. Individuals who will not find a way forward in their
search for a more meaningful life. At the end of a particular session that individual
gathers up their meanings, stuffs them into a backpack, and wanders back into
their week having missed an opportunity to imagine a new future or to take a
step toward the horizon of new meaning.
Constructivist Psychotherapy is a gift to be read and to be reread.
Dr. Harold Ivan Smith
October 4, 2009