Reviews: Living, Loving and Loss: The Interplay of Intimacy, Sexuality and Grief, Global Atlas of Palliative Care at the End of Life

Abstract

Living, Loving and Loss has the potential to become the definitive book on the interconnection among sexuality, intimacy, and loss, much as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross' On Death and Dying opened communication on the dying process. Ken Doka's disenfranchised grief, as a strategy or concept, as well as two books, made us aware of unrecognized grief and loss.With sensitivity and tact, the chapter authors and the editors confront a variety of difficult topics. Although the media is filled with sex, violence, and death, on a personal-interaction level sex and death are still, as the editors note, taboo topics. Within the broad categories of sexuality and grief, the editors have compiled chapters on topics that are uncomfortable for us to discuss even though they are topics "ripped from the headlines." For example, Harold Ivan Smith discusses sexuality and intimacy when penile erection dysfunction occurs. Linda Goldman notes the losses accompanying the rejection of lesbian, gay, or bisexual children and adolescents by parents and peers. M. Douglas Harvey looks at the issues raised by the psychological trauma experienced by returning veterans. The editors suggest that there are many areas of concern beyond those in their book. Among those, the physical traumas of wounded veterans and of others experiencing physical losses (e.g., amputations, mastectomies) raise many questions about loss, grief, and intimacy.DeFord and Gilbert state that their "primary aim is to encourage a conversation about the significance of intimacy and sexuality issues with an experience of loss and grief " (p. viii). They are successful in that goal but go much further