ABSTRACT
A book that explores various aspects of loss would be remiss if it did not discuss the context in which these losses occur and the socially mediated factors that affect the response to these losses. It can be said that we do indeed walk alone at times on our life’s path; however, which path we choose, how we walk that path, and what possible alternative paths we may have are all highly inuenced by the social context in which we live. There is often a tendency on the part of clinicians to focus on grief in terms of an individual’s personal reactions to a loss. After all, the focus of most clinical work is on the individual, either in private counseling or in small group work focused on the issue at hand. Yet, when we work with individuals, we recognize that they exist within family systems, organizational systems, and even social and political structures that have an inuence on these individuals’ experience of loss and the manifestation of their grief. It is with this thought in mind that this chapter is devoted to the “bigger picture” of loss, hoping that by so doing the individual experience is situated as part of the larger social context of loss.
