End-of-Life Issues, Grief, and Bereavement

The needs of individuals with life-limiting or terminal illness and those caring for them are well documented. However, meeting these needs can be challenging, particularly in the absence of a well-established evidence base about how best to help. In this informative guide, editors Sara Qualls and Julia Kasl-Godley have brought together a notable team of international contributors to produce a clear structure offering mental health professionals a framework for developing the competencies needed to work with end-of-life care issues, challenges, concerns, and opportunities.

Part of the Wiley Series in Clinical Geropsychology, this thorough and up-to-date guide answers complex questions often asked by patients, their families and caregivers, and helping professionals as well, including:

• How does dying occur, and how does it vary across illnesses?

• What are the spiritual issues that are visible in end-of-life care?

• How are families engaged in end-of-life care, and what services and support can mental health clinicians provide them?

• How should providers address mental disorders that appear at the end of life?

• What are the tools and strategies involved in advanced care planning, and how do they play out during end-of-life care?

Sensitively addressing the issues that arise in the clinical care of the actively dying, this timely book is filled with clinical illustrations, guidance, tips for practice, and encouragement. Written to equip mental health professionals with the information they need to guide families and others caring for the needs of individuals with life-threatening and terminal illnesses, End-of-Life Issues, Grief, and Bereavement presents a rich resource for caregivers for the psychological, sociocultural, interpersonal, and spiritual aspects of care at the end of life.

Also in the Wiley Series in Clinical Geropsychology

• Psychotherapy for Depression in Older Adults
• Changes in Decision-Making Capacity in Older Adults: Assessment and Intervention
• Aging Families and Caregiving

JULIA E. KASL-GODLEY, PHD, is Coordinator of Psychology Training at the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Interprofessional Palliative Care Fellowship Program in California. She has published on interventions for anticipatory grief and end-of-life care and is the recipient of the APA's 2003 Theodore Blau Early Career Award for Outstanding Contribution to Professional Clinical Psychology.