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Acknowledgments
We have many to acknowledge and thank for their help in our work with this
text. First, we would like to thank the instructors, students, and clinicians who
have given us feedback on the first edition. All have helped us to improve and
update this edition. Second, we thank our “Readings Writers” who wrote the
readings at the end of each chapter and are experts, sometimes academically
and often experientially. We appreciate your willingness to share your stories
to enliven this text. Third, we want to thank our clients and research partici-
pants who have shared their loss experiences and meaning-making thereby
teaching us ever more about the subtleties and nuances of multiple types of
loss. Fourth, we owe gratitude and respect to the people who taught us about
grief and loss experientially: for Judie McCoyd those include Judy Achuff
(high school “best friend”), Eunice and Ben Maurer (grandparents), Mary and
Walter McCoyd (in-laws), and Doug Moyer (sibling). For Carolyn Walter, these
experiential lessons of loss started early and included Joseph Penrose Ambler
(father) and John Walter (first husband) who taught Carolyn many important
lessons in grief, recovery and meaning-making. Fifth and not least, we thank
Jim Baumohl for his close editing of most of the chapters to help us clarify our
points and protect us from garrulousness and vagueness.
We give deep thanks to our family and friends who have supported us
in this endeavor. Carolyn Walter thanks her husband, Bruce, for supporting
her through many difficult moments in writing this second edition, as well
as friends, Norma, Janet, and too many to name! Carolyn also thanks the
grad assistants at Widener who helped gather recent literature for this second
edition. Judie McCoyd thanks all her friends, especially Corey Shdaimah and
Anne Dalke, who helped her navigate recent rough transitions. Great thanks
to Jim Baumohl for his “over and above” help with editing and the household.
Finally, we wish to thank Sheri W. Sussman at Springer Publishing
Company for believing in us and this book enough to ask us for this second
edition. We are grateful to be working with her.
