Passings - Death, Dying, and Unexplained Phenomena

What is compassion, how does it affect the quality of our lives and how can we develop compassion for ourselves and others?

Humans are capable of extreme cruelty but also considerable compassion. Often neglected in Western psychology, this book looks at how compassion may have evolved, and is linked to various capacities such as sympathy, empathy, forgiveness and warmth. Exploring the effects of early life experiences with families and peers, this book outlines how developing compassion for self and others can be key to helping people change, recover and develop ways of living that increase well-being.

Focusing on the multi-dimensional nature of compassion, international contributors:

• explore integrative evolutionary, social constructivist, cognitive and Buddhist approaches to compassion
• consider how and why cruelty can flourish when our capacities for compassion are turned off, especially in particular environments
• focus on how therapists bring compassion into their therapeutic relationship, and examine its healing effects
• describe how to help patients develop inner warmth and compassion to help alleviate psychological problems.

Compassion provides detailed outlines of interventions that are of particular value to psychotherapists and counsellors interested in developing compassion as a therapeutic focus in their work. It is also of value to social scientists interested in pro-social behaviour, and those seeking links between Buddhist and Western psychology.

Do you wish to live a healthy and fulfilling life?

Although the holistic healing described in this book relates to those affected by cancer, the messages in its pages are valid for everybody. The book provides you with information and inspiration to lead you towards living in a healthy and more fulfilling way. It demonstrates how even those who are very sick can achieve health and happiness or at the very least a better quality of life. The secret to holistic healing is that it includes healing of the body, the mind and the spirit.

If you have been affected by a cancer or any other serious illness, this book is for you and all those who care for you, whether the professionals or your own family. You can learn what you need to know about complementary therapies and living healthily and be inspired by the remarkable stories of those who have recovered from cancer, sometimes against all odds.

Many of the therapeutic activities suggested in the book are available to most people at very little or no cost:

• Nutrition
• Walking
• Yoga
• Relaxation exercises
• Meditation
• Art classes
• Singing
• Reading groups
• Self-awareness and Self-development courses

You can follow the relaxation and meditation exercises provided in the book and utilise the guidelines for eating healthily and avoiding pollution in your life.

The complementary therapies and activities as described in this book are not alternatives to medical treatment; they complement it.

"Winnicott was a healer with the qualities of a parent, a magician, a teacher, a poet and a friend. The editors of this book have done a great service in collecting and arranging papers dating from the experiences of the evacuation in the Second World War up to some of Winnicott’s continued explorations of his own philosophy" - The British Medical Journal

D. W. Winnicott was one of the giants of child psychiatry and psychoanalysis. He argued eloquently for an increased sensitivity to children, their development and their needs. Deprivation and Delinquency is an invaluable collection of his work on the theme of the relationship between antisocial behaviour, or more chronically delinquency, and childhood experiences of deprivation. Winnicott examines children under stress, the nature and origin of antisocial tendency and the practical management of difficult children – issues which have once again exploded onto the social agenda.