Lessons of Loss: A Guide to Coping
Lessons of Loss: A Guide to Coping
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损失的教训：应对指南
DOI：
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发表时间：
1999
影响因子：
0.7
通讯作者：
W. J. Lyddon
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
R. Neimeyer;W. J. Lyddon
失去是一次有意义的旅程 失去的教训：应对指南 罗伯特·A·内迈耶 (Robert A. Neimeyer)。纽约：McGraw-Hill (www.mcgraw-hill.com)。 1998 年，214 页，30.59 美元（平装）。罗伯特·内迈耶不仅被认为是建构主义心理学和心理治疗领域最杰出、最多产的学者之一，而且也被公认为丧亲和失落领域的领先思想家。除了发表了大量有关死亡、失落和自杀的书籍章节和文章外，他还是备受推崇的国际期刊《死亡研究》的编辑、《死亡焦虑手册》（Neimeyer，1997 年）的作者以及（与 Hannelore Wass 合作）《死亡：面对事实》（Wass & Neimeyer，1994 年）的合编者。标题恰如其分的《失去的教训：应对指南》为读者提供了内迈耶通过多年的专注研究、写作和临床工作获得的许多重要“教训”。内迈耶将建构主义假设和原则应用于丧亲和损失领域，这本书还奠定了新的概念基础。本书分为三个主要部分。在第一部分“致哀悼者”中，内迈耶概述了丧亲之痛的一些概况，特别关注与失去关系（通过死亡或离婚）、失业、哀悼的任务和挑战以及应对丧亲之痛的社会和文化背景相关的独特挑战。在每个领域，他都提供了许多实用指南（例如，“你应该什么时候寻求帮助？”；“适应损失：十个实用步骤”；以及“向哀悼者伸出援手时的注意事项”），并使用简短的插图来说明所涉及的重要问题和主题。虽然主要是为最近可能经历过失去亲人的人设计的，但第一部分中的材料也适合那些正在寻找关键问题和研究的信息摘要或为失去亲人的客户提供支持性读物的专业人士。在本书的第二部分“致那些有帮助的人”中，内迈尔通过详细阐述作为意义重建过程的悲伤的概念模型，更全面地关注理论问题。该模型基于临床实践的建构主义认识论，将意义创造视为悲伤体验的核心过程，并挑战了传统的基于阶段的悲伤理论，这些理论基于这样的假设：失去亲人的人私下和被动地协商对失去亲人的反应的阶段、任务和症状的普遍序列。相比之下，内迈尔建议人们积极面对损失的挑战，而不是成为被动的反应者。从这个角度来看，悲伤是人们所做的事情，而不是对他们所做的事情。此外，意义建构模型并没有以规范的、基于阶段的术语来看待悲伤过程，而是将注意力集中在人类个人和社会上构建可行的方式来理解失落的多样化方式上。这种对意义创造的具体和文化维度的关注使得偏离所谓“正常”悲伤的人不太可能被病态化。内迈耶的意义建构模型还采用了一种非常不同的方法来理解与悲伤相关的情绪的作用。也就是说，建构主义的意义建构方法并不将可能与悲伤相关的一系列情绪（抑郁、焦虑、内疚、敌意等）视为需要治疗和克服的症状，而是强调人的情感的功能价值，表明情感“应该被理解为我们的意义状态的信号，在我们的结构的充分性受到挑战之后做出努力”（第...
Loss As a Meaning-Making Journey Lessons of Loss: A Guide to Coping Robert A. Neimeyer. New York: McGraw-Hill (www. mcgraw-hill.com). 1998, 214 pp., $30.59 (softcover). Robert Neimeyer is not only known as one of the most prominent and prolific scholars in constructivist psychology and psychotherapy, but is also recognized as a leading thinker in the field of bereavement and loss. In addition to having published numerous book chapters and articles on death, loss, and suicide, he is the editor of the respected international journal, Death Studies, author of the Death Anxiety Handbook (Neimeyer, 1997) and coeditor (with Hannelore Wass) of Dying: Facing the Facts (Wass & Neimeyer, 1994). Aptly titled, Lessons of Loss: A Guide to Coping, provides readers with many of the significant "lessons" Neimeyer has garnered through his years of dedicated research, writing, and clinical work. The book also lays new conceptual ground as Neimeyer brings constructivist assumptions and principles to bear on the field of bereavement and loss. The book is organized into three broad sections. In Part I, "For Those Who Grieve," Neimeyer provides an overview of some of the general contours of bereavement with special attention given to the unique challenges associated with relationship loss (through either death or divorce), job loss, the tasks and challenges of mourning, and the social and cultural contexts of coping with loss. In each of these areas, he offers numerous practical guidelines (e.g., "When Should You Reach Out for Help?"; "Adapting to Loss: Ten Practical Steps"; and "Do's and Don'ts When Reaching Out to a Mourner") and uses brief vignettes to illustrate the significant issues and themes covered. While primarily designed for persons who may have experienced a recent loss, the material in Part I is also relevant to professionals who are looking for informative summaries of key issues and research or for supportive readings to give to bereaved clients. In Part II of the book, "For Those Who Help," Neimeyer more fully attends to theoretical issues by elaborating on a conceptual model of grieving as process of meaning reconstruction. Based on a constructivist epistemology of clinical practice, this model views meaning making as the core process of the grief experience and challenges traditional stage-based theories of grief that are based on the assumption bereaved persons privately and passively negotiate a universal sequence of stages, tasks, and symptoms in reaction to a loss. By way of contrast, Neimeyer suggests that people-rather than being passive reactors-be active in facing the challenges of loss. From this perspective, grieving is something people do, not something that is done to them. Furthermore, rather than viewing the grief process in normative, stage-based terms, a meaning-making model draws attention to the diverse and variegated ways in which humans both personally and socially construct viable ways to make sense of loss. This attention to both idiographic and cultural dimensions of meaning-making makes it less likely that a person who deviates from something called "normal" grieving will be pathologized. Neimeyer's meaningmaking model also takes a very different approach to understanding the role of grief-related emotions. That is, rather than viewing the constellations of emotions that may be associated with grief (depression, anxiety, guilt, hostility, etc.) as merely symptoms that need to be treated and overcome, a constructivist, meaning-making approach underscores the functional value of persons' feelings, suggesting that feelings "should be understood as signals of the state of our meaning making efforts in the wake of challenges to the adequacy of our constructions" (p. …