A fascinating look at the social experience of sharing a bed with another person. Millions of adults sleep with another adult, but what does it mean to share a bed with someone else, and how does it affect a couple's relationship? What happens when one partner snores? Steals the sheets? Prefers to sleep in the nude? To address these and other questions, Paul C. Rosenblatt asked couples to describe the struggles, challenges, and achievements of their bed-sharing experiences. Two in a Bed includes interviews with more than forty bed-sharing couples as they candidly discuss winding down and waking up, cold feet and tucked sheets, who sleeps near the door and who gets pushed to the edge, snoring, spooning, sleep talking, sleep walking, and the myriad other behaviors we negotiate in falling asleep, staying asleep, and waking up each morning beside a partner. In addition to exploring the routines and realities of sharing a bed with another person, these interviews reveal important information about sleep, relationships, and American society. Stressing the intricacy and importance of a previously unremarked activity, Rosenblatt's Two in a Bed shows that sleep should no longer be viewed solely as an individual phenomenon. (New York: SUNY Press)

Based on intensive interviews with 26 bereaved African-Americans and a thorough review of the relevant literature, this book provides the first comprehensive picture of African-American grieving. In many ways contemporary theories of bereavement fit what we see in African-American bereavement, but in some ways these theories are mute, misleading, or unhelpful. In particular, the standard views of bereavement do not provide an understanding of how African-American bereavement is shaped by and responsive to racism, economic disadvantage, the almost six years difference in life expectancy between African-Americans and Euro-Americans, the social class diversity of many African-American families, and, for some African-Americans, the powerful influence of drugs and community devastation. Nor do the standard views of bereavement help us to understand the influence of the Black church and African-American culture(s). Although a great deal of bereavement literature is written as though one set of principles fits all, this book suggests that those principles fall short when it comes to African-Americans. (New York: Brunner-Routledge)

Rosenblatt, founder of the Grief and Families Focus Group of the National Council on Family Relations, has written a sympathetic book focusing on the effects of the loss of a child on a couple's relationship. Rosenblatt's research is based on interviews with 29 couples from different socioeconomic circumstances who lost children of varying ages. Although this book definitely fills a gap in death and dying literature, it is, unfortunately, poorly written, and its repetitious style detracts from its worth. Rosenblatt's advice differs little from couples counseling in general. Perhaps the most helpful chapter deals with strained sexual relationships following the death of a child. In some cases, Rosenblatt tries to copy the vernacular of the interviewees, but rather than enhancing the dialog, it actually disrupts the flow, often making the interviewees sound unintelligent. The book would have benefited from a list of references and/or suggested readings. Because the work is written specifically for couples, it is best suited for public libraries.--Annette Haines, Central Michigan Univ. Libs., Mt. Pleasant Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.(Philadelphia: Temple University Press)

A psychologist and a qualitative researcher in the field use extensive interviews to explore the narratives of 58 parents in 29 couples or former couples who have experienced the death of a child. Themes addressed include the death and events leading up to it; parents' experiences of a chasm between themselves and others; individual and couple grieving; parenting other children after the death; relationships with family, friends, and community; and learning how to talk about the death. (Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel)

Winner of an award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights as an outstanding book for the year 1995 on the Subject of Human Rights in North America. The problems of mixed race families in a racist society are fully explored in this qualitative, narrative study. Interviews with 21 biracial couples offer deep insights into their relationships and how they perceive society has viewed their marriages. The interviewers, a biracial couple themselves, ask their subjects such questions as how their churches, families, friends and community treat them and their partners. They also examine the interactions between spouses in biracial marriages and relationships between these couples and their parents and children. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage)

"The author wrote Metaphors of Family Systems Theory for an audience composed of professionals who study and/or treat families. ...I recommend the book unequivocally and with some urgency to experienced family theorists and practitioners, because its contents provide a balanced view of what various mainstream theoretical concepts both offer and fail to offer.... I also recommend this book as a supplemental text for students and professionals who are in the initial stages of their exposure to family system-oriented theory and therapy and are concurrently reading the foundational literature." -Stephen M. Gavazzi, Journal of Marriage and the Family. A selection of the Psychotherapy Book Club and the Behavioral Science Book Club. (New York: Guilford)

This book documents the role of private and federal farm lenders in creating economic difficulties for farm families and the inequities in the distribution of losses between lender and borrower. Examines the role of family loyalties, values, and traditions in creating economic difficulties for farm families. Describes the patterns farm families have followed in coping with economic difficulties and discusses the interpersonal and economic problems these approaches have created. Analyzes farming as a way of life and the complexities in dealing with the economic crisis that arises from loyalty to home place, herds, and family traditions. Provides accounts of the interpersonal costs to families caught in the crisis. Raises questions about the actions of farm lenders and possible problems in the established rules of loan security. Illuminates the complexities of the grief process in farm families in crisis. Explores the dynamics of both isolation and support felt by farm families in crisis and analyzes the many forces, in families and in the community, that make both happen. Going beneath the statistics to let the people caught in the crisis speak for themselves, this book brings to life the experiences, understandings, and feelings of twenty-four Minnesota farm families caught in the economic crisis in agriculture. (Ames: Iowa State University Press. Repring edition: Ann Arbor, MI: Books on Demand, UMI Press)

Rosenblatt provides practical, how-to advice for mediating a variety of conflicts, including those arising from divorces, custody and visitation decisions, family conflict, neighborhood grievances, educational disagreements, environmental disputes, and problems in the workplace. This book provides ways to design, manage, and maintain more useful work groups--including labor-management committees, staff meetings, advisory groups, and policy committees. In eleven original chapters, reviews current knowledge about groups and explores new directions for understanding them and improving their effectiveness. (San Fransisco: JosseyBass. Spanish translation: La Familia en la Empresa. Buenos Aires, Argentina: "El Ateneo," Pedro Garcia S.A., 1995. Reprint edition: Ann Arbor, MI: Books on Demand, UMI Press, 1997)

This book examines grief over death and separation in 56 nineteenth century U.S. and Canadian diaries. Grief is defined here as the emotional reactions (including sorrow, anger, and depression) and the cognitive reactions (including confusion and obsessive review) to a loss. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Reprint edition: Ann Arbor, MI: Books on Demand, UMI Press)

For people in all human societies, the death of familiar people is a constant. The ethnographic passages quoted throughout this book illustrate the fact that grief feelings are not unique to people in Western civilization. The experience of grief seems to be one of the costs of being human. The gains from long-term contact and interdependence are often followed by the agony, anger, and feelings of emptiness and sorrow that result from the death of someone who has been important to one. (New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files Press)