ABSTRACT
People facing their mortality with a history of conflictual or alienated relationships with others can benefit from this specialized form of life review to reflect on, formulate and perhaps share some of the important life lessons learned in looking back on their lives. In author's work in the early 1980s, even the foster parents of HIV-infected children-most of whom died prior to three years of age-often sought to find some value in the short, often painful years of the child's life. The technique of Life Lessons Learned can be a useful alternative here as it allows persons to positively reflect on what their experiences-however negative-taught them. He also had a child with another woman-who broke off any relationship with him after she found he had, despite a promise and an attempt at rehabilitation, relapsed. Doug was intrigued by the possibility and explored it further with the chaplain-deciding that he wished to record his observations.
