Living, Loving and Loss ─ The Interplay of Intimacy, Sexuality, and Grief

One of the unspoken aspects of mourning concerns the ways that loss affects our intimate relationships and our sexual expressiveness. This text opens these subjects for conversation, with the aim of promoting the trust, care, and respect that enable us to be vulnerable. It purposefully covers a range of topics, including: (1) the meaning of intimacy and the significance of sexuality, providing a basis for the use of these terms throughout the book; (2) death, grief, and differences in sexual orientation, including death and intimacy in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community and the losses endured by young people due to gender issues; (3) loss of relationship and restoration of intimacy in families, including pharmacological effects on the grief processes of widowers; grieving a not-so-loved parent; the “layered losses” of infertility and intimacy; and the tolls of war—intimacy and sexuality challenges for soldiers and their families; (4) adjusting to life's losses associated with aging or illness or infirmity, including Alzheimer's and dementia-related illnesses, physical health losses after 50, and intimacy, sex, and hospice—self-determination and dignity at the end of life; and (5) religious bases that have shaped our perspectives for understanding intimacy, sexuality, and healing after loss, and which give us hope—including the spiritual reflections of a rabbi and a Christian voice in defining what is right. Set in a framework that is both psychological and spiritual, the well-researched contributions are intended to acknowledge these experiences both professionally and personally. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography, valuable for research and reference.This book will be of value in undergraduate and graduate courses on thanatology, as well as for anyone interested in knowing more about grief—both those currently bereaved and those who wish to support others in mourning. The contributors appreciate both the importance of our capacities for intimacy and sexuality and our inhibitions and hesitations in giving voice to our needs and concerns, perhaps especially when we are grieving. The information and compassionate understanding they provide encourage us to bridge the gap between the secret and the private and to share what is close to our hearts. Intended Audience: Undergraduate and graduate students in thanatology and grief, health care professionals, administrators, educators, researchers, therapists, counselors, chaplains, clergy, human resources professionals, authors, journalists, artists, gerontologists, the LGBT community and its support network, long-term care professionals and advocates, hospice care providers, support personnel for veterans, government, and business leadership, and those who feel they have lost vitality, mission, and love.

Brad DeFord, PhD, researches and writes on end-of-life, grief, and aging. He is a graduate of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago (MA, PhD) and Union Theological Seminary in New York (MDiv). He has been a hospice chaplain for ten years, and for six years served as Leader of the Spiritual Caregiver Section of the National Council of Hospice and Palliative Professionals, an organization of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO). He published frequently in NHPCO journals and had a principal role in writing Guidelines for Spiritual Care in Hospice. DeFord has published articles in journals as diverse as Healing Ministry and Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation. He is coauthor, with social worker Suzanne Bushfield, of End-of-Life Care and Addiction: A Family Systems Approach (Springer, 2009). He has presented papers at NHPCO conferences, both clinical and managerial; at meetings of the Association for Death Education and Counseling (of which he is a member); and at a Southern California Bioenergetics conference.