Understanding the Grief and Loss Experiences of Carers

Joanna Horne is a Lecturer in Psychology and Counselling at The Open University, UK. She conducts research within the areas of physical activity and carer wellbeing, and support needs of young carers. Jo is a member of the Open University Carers Research Group. Kerry Jones is a Senior Lecturer at The Open University, UK, where her research and teaching focus on death, dying, grief, bereavement and end-of-life care. As Co-Lead of the Open University Carers Research Group, she has published and presented her research on care homes and care-giving staff during the pandemic, stillbirth neonatal death, parental bereavement, brain injury, dementia and suicide. Kerry was an academic consultant for A Time to Live on BBC 2.

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List of contributors

Introduction

1: Ambiguous loss: Personal and professional reflections

2: Impact on identity for those working as healthcare professionals when taking on the role of carer

3: ‘I could cry all day, every day, about my losses’: Caring for young adults with life-shortening conditions – families’ experiences of disruption and loss

4: From physically active to physically inactive: Understanding the experiences of a familial carer’s loss of self

5: Both sides of the coin: A mother’s experience of caring for an adult daughter living with serious life-limiting illness

6: ‘God hasn’t given up on them’: Christian dementia carers’ narratives of experiencing and challenging ‘anticipatory grief’ and ‘social death’

7: The grief of care partners of people living and dying with dementia: A psychodynamic perspective

8: When an adult with significant caregiving responsibilities for children is at end-of-life with cancer: A carer’s pre-bereavement and post-bereavement experiences

9: When caring ends: Exploring the hidden aspects of loss in trajectories out of caring in Australia

10: Former carers: Grief, loss and other stories

Index