Facing Death: Images, Insights, and Interventions: A Handbook For Educators, Healthcare Professionals, And Counselors (Series in Death, Dying, and Bereavement) [Paperback]

Sandra L. Bertman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1560322233 | ISBN-13: 978-1560322238 | Publication Date: May 1, 1991 | Edition: 1

Facing Death is a unique handbook for educators, healthcare professionals and counselors. It uses materials from the visual arts, excerpts from poetry, fiction, drama, and examples from popular culture to sensitize the reader to important, universal issues confronting the dying, and those responsible for their care.

Editorial Reviews

Review

There is a profoundly human quality to Bertman's work that makes her use of even well known paintings, photographs, and other images fresh and to the point. Her words help us to understand what the images do for us and for our patients. A cherished book that captures the essence of palliative care--to be revisited and reread often.

Eric Cassell, M.D., Author of The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine

In her writings, personal appearances, and media creations, Bertman lays everything on the line. She does not hide behind generalizations, cliches or statistics. Her audiences know that they are in contact with somebody who faces the real issues honestly, in detail, and without simplification.

Robert Kastenbaum, Ph.D., Professor of Gerontology, Arizona State University and Founding Editor of Omega

An excellent teaching tool...especially recommended for health care professionals and counselors who work with terminally ill patients and people who are facing imminent death.

Elizabeth Kubler Ross

It is hard to know what to praise the most. The writing is perceptive, caring, insightful, helpful, and challenging. The illustrations, poems, quotations, and paintings afford insights into terminal illness and death that textbooks and lectures never could on their own. The three sections of the book are uniformly superb.

Nursing Times

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis; 1 edition (May 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560322233
• ISBN-13: 978-1560322238
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,345,684 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Rich Resource, January 17, 2001

By 

Nada Stotland (Chicago, Il USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Facing Death: Images, Insights, and Interventions: A Handbook For Educators, Healthcare Professionals, And Counselors (Series in Death, Dying, and Bereavement) (Paperback)

Facing Death is an extraordinary resource for health care professionals and teachers, religious leaders, and for anyone either contemplating death in the abstract or facing it personally or as a friend or relative of someone with a fatal illness. It is an exquisite and empathic blend of reflect, review, verbal and visual images, and practical suggestions. It contains poignant quotes from poets, novelists, and families; powerful photographs of the interactions of family members with a dying grandparent; drawings by students asked to depict their feelings about death; and photographs of great and powerful works of visual art. The author uses the arts as stimuli to help patients and students acknowledge and explore their own feelings and behaviors. This book is enormously useful to me as a mortal middle-aged human being, as a physician caring for patients, and as a teacher.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Images galore, September 20, 2004

By 

D. Becker (Albrightsville,PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: FACING DEATH SEE PB ED (Death Education, Aging & Health Care) (Hardcover)

Bertman has done an excellant job of jam packing a book full of paintings, sculpture, line art, cartoons and diagrams on the subject of death. Thoough her focus is mostly on dying the images are relevant, as well, in exploring mortality in general. Bertman has not made the mistake of making her work too theoretical or logocentric. She offers advice for creating art related to dying as well as advice on interpreting such art.
This book serves well in a death education course,or for the art therapist working in a hospice or similar setting as well as individuals who wish to explore ideas on death that are manifested in art.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique and Useful, February 4, 2002

By 

"lizzie-p" (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Facing Death: Images, Insights, and Interventions: A Handbook For Educators, Healthcare Professionals, And Counselors (Series in Death, Dying, and Bereavement) (Paperback)

As a medical educator, it can be difficult to find ways of helping students explore their emotional responses to suffering, death, and grief in ways that are safe and accessible, but challenging and useful. Dr. Bertman's book has turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. This collection of visual representations with explanatory text is a great starting place for discussions about the issues of life, death, and illness for learners at any level, from children to patients and families, to health care practitioners.