ABSTRACT
Inequalities of power affect both vulnerability to bereavement and the ability to recover from it. The fewer resources you control, the less likely you are to protect yourself and those you love from traumatic events-diseases you cannot afford to treat or avoid, accidents due to dangerous work, the violence of urban slums, unemployment, eviction, imprisonment. But this vulnerability itself-as a source of anxiety and feelings of helplessness or dependence-also makes recovery from loss more difficult. Those who are most exposed to loss also tend to have fewer assurances and continuities by which to reconstruct the meaning of their lives. To understand more fully how this is so, let me review some recent studies of recovery from bereavement, because many of the personal qualities and circumstances which affect recovery imply corresponding qualities in social relationships of control.
