The loss of a child is one of the most profoundly stressful events an adult can experience, but perinatal hospice may be an important resource for the family’s wellbeing. The aim of this study was ...

Colin Murray Parkes with Cruse patron Her Majesty the Queen at St James Palace, celebrating Cruse’s 60th anniversaryI was honoured to be asked to write something at this time, as Colin steps down a...

Each year, thousands of British schoolchildren experience the loss of a loved one. In this trying time, it is vital that school staff have a good understanding of how to offer support. Sadly, many ...

Does restricting the ceremonial/ritual arrangements around a cremation to a minimum have a negative association with grief over time? This question has increasingly concerned professionals in the f...

Our objective was to explore parents' experiences of stillbirth using a patient-led qualitative approach, in the Canadian context. Parents who had experienced stillbirth in the previous five years were recruited through posters and snowball sampling. We conducted a co-design focus group to set the direction of our research, narrative interviews, and a reflect focus group to engage parents in finalizing the analysis and findings. Data was analysed iteratively using a participatory approach with grounded theory principles. Our findings highlight that stillbirth is a story of death, but it is also a story of life. Parents (n=11) require the space to experience both the birth and death elements of the story; yet, one or both elements are often silenced. Stillbirth, still life was the core concept that emerged from parents' stories of their stillborn babies. Parents' narratives are driven by the need to honour their babies' lives. They are learning to be unsilenced.

Working with young children, Donald Winnicott (1951 Winnicott, D. W. (1951). Transitional objects and transitional phenomena. Collected papers: Through paediatrics to psycho-analysis. Tavistock Publication. [Google Scholar]) identified transitional objects as items which were both created and discovered by an infant for comfort, and to support the developmental necessity of separating from their primary caregiver. In adulthood, the keeping and holding of a physical object, for example a piece of jewellery owned by a loved one who has died, is frequently seen as supportive for bereaved people but is rarely named or conceptualised as a transitional object. Taking an object relations perspective, the aim of this review will be to consider research and literature within bereavement theory and practice in order to suggest how transitional objects can be conceptualised in grief work across all life stages. Examples from research and the authors own therapeutic practice will be shared in order to suggest ways in which the use of transitional objects can support therapeutic practice with bereaved people.

To minimise the adverse outcomes of prolonged complex bereavement, health professionals need effective risk screening tools to identify those at risk. However, existing tools can be challenging to ...

This study aimed to explore the current clinical psychology approach in supporting bereaved adults with intellectual disability (ID). As the literature in this area is limited, report of real clini...