Book Reviews: Grieving mental illness: a guide for patients and their caregivers, 2nd ed.

Virginia Lafond Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press; 2002. 123 pp. $17.95 (paper) ISBN 0-8020-8532-6 Rating: **1/2 Audience: Patients with mental illness and their caregivers Content: The central tenets of this self-help manual are that people who are afflicted with mental illness suffer not only from the illness itself but also from the psychological effects of their diagnosis, and that coming to terms with those effects is a grief process. From this vantage point, Lafond, a social worker with the schizophrenia program at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, takes us through the familiar stages of denial, sadness, anger, fear and acceptance. In short chapters peppered with clinical anecdotes and wisdom won through clinical and personal experience with mental illness, she tries to help both patients and caregivers identify and work through their undoubtedly complex reactions. Strengths: The chief value of this book lies in its theme. Grief is an undeveloped concept in our current approach to psychological illness. Because mental illness is both stigmatized and frightening, society — including patients, caregivers and professionals — often fail to validate the sense of loss that accompanies diagnosis. Lafond not only legitimizes grief, but also gives useful suggestions on how to identify and deal with the grieving process that she believes inevitably accompanies mental illness. Limitations: This book suffers from the drawbacks of the self-help genre: in attempting to be all things to all people, it is at times imprecise, contradictory and condescending. Given her theme, it is striking that the author defines neither grief nor mental illness. It is also striking that, although she urges her readers not to let others tell them what to feel, Lafonde is quite prescriptive herself, even to the point of advising us when to take a break from reading (whether we want to or not) and encouraging us to pat ourselves on the back for finishing a particular section. In general, Grieving Mental Illness can be recommended to patients with a major mental illness or their caregivers. It will do no harm, and something of value will emerge for all readers, including health care professionals. L. Rex Kay Department of Psychiatry Mount Sinai Hospital Toronto, Ont. This book is available through your local book retailer or through the publisher at www.utppublishing.com/