Reviews

Fanos, Joanna H. Sibling Loss, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, New Jersey.

"As a pediatric oncologist for the past twenty years, I have realized that when a child has a life-threatening or tenninal illness, the family is the treatment unit. What Dr. Fanos has done in this eloquently written work is to highlight in a compre-hensive manner the issues facing siblings of children who havedied following a chronic illness. By combining the results of her own intensive investigation with the current literature and meaningful vignettes, she has made a compelling case for all professionals involved in the care of chronically ill children with life-threatening diseases, to be aware of the many issues facing siblings, their developmental differences and their reactions, and the need to include these often forgotten partners in the disease processes into our therapeutic milieu. " This work represents an important step in advancing the awareness of the effects of death on siblings, and a call to those of us in the health profession to recognize and intervene effectively in order to prevent compounding the loss. "

- Harvey J. Cohen, IVID, PhDChief of Staff, Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital, Stanford University



"An impressive pioneering study of the far-ranging and long-lasting impact on growing children of the chronic illness and death of a sibling before reaching adulthood. A major contribution to the psychoanalytic literature on the complexly imbricated nature of sibling relationships, far transcending early psychoanalytic formulations focused too narrowly just on sibling rivalry and its consequences. A 'must read' for everyone concemed with trauma, loss, coping, and development in both their clinical ramifications and in their implications for our expanded psycho-analytic theoretical understandings of the life course and its vicissitudes."

- Robert S. Wallerstein, IVID Past-President, American Psychoanalytic Association and International Psychoanalytical Association




"A child's illness and death is a family tragedy, terrifying and ultimately devastating for every member of the family. Too often we give little attention to the child's siblings. Fanos brings home to us with insight and compassion the siblings' reactions: their resentments, their guilts, their fears, and their deep and persisting sense of loss. This book should be consulted regularly by all parents of seriously ill children, and it should be on the desk of all professionals who would provide parents of seriously ill children with support and counsel or provide siblings of seriously ill children with understanding."

Robert S. Weiss University of Massachusetts, Boston



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