San Francisco Public Library

Death benefits, how losing a parent can change an adult's life-- for the better, Jeanne Safer

eng

Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-220) and index

index present

non fiction

Death benefits

bibliography

181424120

Jeanne Safer

how losing a parent can change an adult's life-- for the better

Although most of us lose a mother or father in later life, few of us are psychologically prepared for the experience. This book explores the uncharted territory each of us enters when a parent leaves us, and offers a blueprint for positive change in every aspect of our lives. It demonstrates through powerful stories (including the author's own revelatory experience) how parent loss is the most potent catalyst for change in middle age and can actually offer us our last, best chance to become our truest, deepest selves. Psychotherapist Safer challenges the conventional wisdom that fundamental change is only for the young, and that loss must simply be endured or overcome. Filled with moving and engaging stories of real men and women re-imagining themselves after a parent's death, this is a fresh, impassioned, and sophisticated look at self-transformation in later life.--From publisher description

My death benefit (autobiography) -- Death benefits : the last taboo -- Going through the stuff : choosing a legacy -- Using the good china : deserving a life at last -- My body, my self : health and beauty benefits -- Till death do us part : marriage and divorce -- Lifted up in my mother's arms : religious epiphanies -- A voice of my own : creative self-expression -- Father knows best? The punitive parent dies -- Mom's best friend : the end of emotional caretaking -- The eleventh hour : near-death revelations -- Perspectives from the deathspace -- In their end is my beginning : cultivating death benefits

How losing a parent can change an adult's life-- for the better