Out on 18 March 2021
Challenges and Choices for Patient, Carer and Professional at the
End of Life
Living with Uncertainty
Catherine Proot and Michael Yorke
Routledge, 2021. 190 pp. ISBN 9780367544461
Description
Living with Uncertainty gives a broad perspective on the complexities and challenges of the practice of end-of-life care, as well as the perceived benefits and limitations of medical intervention.
Drawn from research and clinical and pastoral experience, the book examines the feelings associated with the end of life, highlighting the demands that people are faced with and their consequences. It moves into the difficult area of people who feel defeated by their illness and can or want to live no longer, along with family, caregivers and professionals who surround them. These perspectives have been built upon hundred narratives of lived experience, combined with the wider clinical and practical range of voices. A topical post-script Lessons from Covid-19 captures the choices and challenges on personal, professional and systemic level which the pandemic so acutely revealed, with a multiplicity of examples.
This will be essential reading for students and professionals in palliative and end-of-life care. Families and friends will also benefit from this book as they try to come to terms with the delicate but universal issues of death and dying.
Table of Contents
Part I: The dying person and their loved ones
1: Attitudes to death and dying
2: The end of life - people's experiences
Part II : Medicine and care at the end of life
3: Medical intervention, a life saver or a life changer
4: Euthanasia and assisted dying
5: Person-centred care
Conclusion
Post-script: Lessons from Covid-19
Catherine Proot holds an MSc in psychology and education from Ghent University, Belgium, a Postgraduate Diploma in counselling and a PhD from the UEA in Norwich, UK. A psychotherapist and clinical supervisor, she has specialised in palliative and bereavement care since 2005 in the UK and Belgium. She works in private practice in Brussels.
The Very Revd Michael Yorke (1939–2019) was a Cambridge graduate in law and theology. An Anglican Priest, he worked principally in and through four cathedrals. He was for 18 years a Samaritan, three of them as National Chairman, and was Vice Chairman to the Norfolk Hospice near Kings Lynn, UK.
IAHPC's Book of the Month, November 2014
Life to be lived
Challenges and choices for patients and carers in life-threatening illnesses
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An accessible and candid study of human experience in major illnesses and end-of-life care, evidenced and illustrated by real life case stories
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Provides a clear description of the reality of illness and caring, highlights the challenges and choices involved, and encourages therapeutic practice
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Written by specialists who work in palliative care settings and bereavement counselling, it is a masterful integration of the psychological, social, and spiritual, offering an understanding of these crucial facets of the holistic approach to working with people in end of life care
Catherine Proot and Michael Yorke
Oxford University Press, 2014. 160 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-968501-1
Description
How do people face life-limiting illness and death? This challenging question is discussed in-depth in Life to be Lived by looking at the feelings, hopes, fears and stresses associated with life-threatening illnesses, often experienced by patients and their carers.
Drawn from research, clinical, and pastoral experiences, the authors examine the process of adjustment that patients and their families go through in major illnesses and when approaching the end of life. Life to be Lived is written in an accessible style using many stories shared by counsellors, chaplains, patients and relatives.
Describing the messiness, uncertainties, and paradoxes that are part and parcel of living through an advanced illness, dying, and bereavement, but also what helps and heals, the book reviews a range of responses to the challenges to patients and carers and the support available, both personal and organisational.
Life to be Lived is essential reading for professionals and trained volunteers who work as part of multidisciplinary teams in palliative and end-of-life care, to improve their understanding of the attitudes and behaviour of patients and carers. Families and friends will also benefit from it as they try to come to terms with their own situations and how they can cope better with them.