Every civilisation except our own has proposed ways of dealing with bereavement. In most cases in our culture, the dying person and his or her family are left alone, defenceless and unarmed, to face a society that refuses pain, while venerating pleasure, youth and performance. At time when religion and religious rites are tending to disappear, and when the sense of community is disintegrating, Marie-Frédérique Bacqué demonstrates that it is our duty to invent new ways of facing the passage of time and the dramas that accompany the process of living, in other words, of finding how master death.

"Marie-Frédérique Bacqué admirably demonstrates the extent to which a collective and personal reflection on the issue of bereavement is essential."

Société Psychanalytique de Paris

Marie-Frédérique Bacqué, a psychologist, is a lecturer at the University of Lille III and secretary general of the Société de Thanalogie and of the Association Vivre son Deuil. She is the author of Deuil et Santé and the editor of Mourir Aujourd'hui, both published by Editions Odile Jacob.