If A Partner Has AIDS: Guide to Clinical Intervention for Relationships in Crisis

This powerful book is an immersion into the experience of AIDS, loss, and the impact of HIV on the mourning process. It presents a reconstruction of the general range of experiences of well and surviving partners of AIDS diagnosed men from a study focusing on the well partner’s perspective from his first suspicion that his partner has AIDS, to caring for him, and through mourning his loss. If a Partner Has AIDS is a comprehensive book that emphasizes the integral role relationships and their loss play in individuals’experience with AIDS and HIV infection.

This helpful book discusses the phenomenon of anticipatory grief and mourning in light of advances in clinical theory. Reformulations of grief and mourning are presented in a self-psychological framework, offering insights into the complexity of the partners’experiences and providing a framework for clinical intervention. Psychotherapists and clinicians will find the information in this practical book relevant to their work with homosexuals and persons affected by AIDS and HIV. Students in social work and psychology will find the step-by-step approach through the long processes of terminal illness, death, and mourning vital education for their future work. For couples and surviving partners impacted by AIDS, their friends and families, this important book offers a framework for understanding and healing.