Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow - Softcover

Viorst, Judith

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0684844958 ISBN 13: 9780684844954

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1998

Synopsis

From grief and mourning to aging and relationships, poet and Redbook contributor Judith Viorst presents a thoughtful and researched study in this examination of love, loss, and letting go.

Drawing on psychoanalysis, literature, and personal experience, Necessary Losses is a philosophy for understanding and accepting life’s inevitabilities.

In Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst turns her considerable talents to a serious and far-reaching subject: how we grow and change through the losses that are a certain and necessary part of life. She argues persuasively that through the loss of our mothers’ protection, the loss of the impossible expectations we bring to relationships, the loss of our younger selves, and the loss of our loved ones through separation and death, we gain deeper perspective, true maturity, and fuller wisdom about life. She has written a book that is both life affirming and life changing.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Shortly after my mother died, a friend recommended a particular book on loss,
which I went out and bought. What surprised me most about that book was that it
didn't focus solely on loss through death, and I began a voracious campaign to
acknowledge, understand, and mourn the various kinds of loss I had experienced in
my life. NECESSARY LOSSES was a natural choice. I had long enjoyed Viorst's
writing for children (even as an adult, having spent many years in juvenile
publishing), so I was very open to both the author and the subject. And I wasn't
disappointed. Viorst has the credentials of a professional psychologist, yet she
brings to a profoundly serious topic the same warm, knowing style that makes
her kids' books so accessible. I found it incredibly healing.

Laurie Kahn, Associate Managing Editor

From the Inside Flap:

erceptive book should absorb and enrich anyone who admits to being human."
Benjamin Spock, M.D.
Essayist Judith Viorst, who has humorously eased our journey to middle age, now turns her considerable talents to a more serious and far-reaching subject: how we grow and change through the losses that are an inevitable and necessary part of life. Arguing persuasively that through the loss of our mothers' protection, the loss of the impossible expectations we bring to relationships, the loss of our younger selves, and the loss of our loved ones through separation and death, we gain deeper persepctive, true maturity, and fuller wisdom about life, Judith Viorst has wirtten a life-affirming and life-changing book.
From the Paperback edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0684844958
• ISBN 13: 9780684844954
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448