Phyllis R Silverman
Biographic Data
| ID | 1646837 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Phyllis R Silverman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Phyllis R |
| FAMILY NAME | Silverman |
| SIGNATURE | SILVERMAN P R |
| AFFILIATIONS | MGH Institute of Health Professions |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 46 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1964 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
When Men Grieve: Widowers’ Stories of Coping With Their Wives’ Deaths
To increase our understanding of the role gender plays in spousal loss, this qualitative study analyzes bereavement narratives of 33 recent widowers, aged 45-89 years, all of whom accessed the National Widowers' Organization website. In particular, we look at how these widowers' lives changed, the impact of changing gender norms, and coping strategies. To illuminate the temporal process evident in these narratives, we utilize Silverman's nonlinea…
Continuing Bonds
Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief
Introduction: What’s the Problem
A Call to Action: An IWG Charter for a Public Health Approach to Dying, Death, and Loss
The current systems of care for dying persons, the people caring for them, and the bereaved operate in ways that frequently lack sufficient sensitivity to their needs. We describe a new model for dying, death, and loss that adopts a public health approach. Specifically, we describe a deliberative process that resulted in a charter for a public health approach to dying, death, and loss. Modeled after the World Health Organization's 1986 Ottawa Cha…
Lessons I Have Learned
Journal Article Lessons I Have Learned Get access Phyllis R. Silverman Phyllis R. Silverman * Phyllis Silverman, Ph.D., Sc.M, MSW, in her research and writing, points to the value of mutual help and experiential knowledge in helping the bereaved. As Co-Principal Investigator and Project Director of the Harvard/MGH Child Bereavement Study, her focus was on the reaction of children and adolescents to parental death. She has received many awards for…
The 2004 Tucson IWG (International Work Group): Charter for the Normalization of Dying, Death and Loss
A group of members of The International Work Group on Death, Dying, and Bereavement prepared a draft statement advocating the promotion of a public health perspective in all direct service approaches to end-of-life care. This statement, which we have called a Charter, is reproduced here. This is a draft of work-in-progress. The readers of Omega are invited to contribute their criticism, reflections, and/or additions to this document. Please send …
The Effects of Negative Legacies on the Adjustment of Parentally Bereaved Children and Adolescents
This is a report of a qualitative analysis of a sample of bereaved families in which one parent died and in which children scored in the clinical range on the Child Behavior Check List. The purpose of this analysis was to learn more about the lives of these children. They were considered to be at risk of developing emotional and behavioral problems associated with the death. We discovered that many of these “high risk” children had a continuing b…
Gender Specific Coping Patterns in Widowed Parents with Dependent Children
This article looks at how the gender of the surviving parent affects the coping styles of bereaved family's with dependent children. Interview data from five father- and five mother-headed bereaved families from the MGH/Harvard Child Bereavement Study were subjected to an in-depth analysis. The findings suggest differences in parental coping patterns that seemed to be gender specific. Mothers in this sub-sample tended to adjust their own prioriti…
It Makes a Difference
Research, Clinical Practice, and the Human Experience: Putting the Pieces Together
The work of the clinician and that of the researcher are presented as representing 2 cultures that cannot exist without each other. A third culture is described to reflect the common human experience of death and grief that invariably informs the work of both clinicians and researchers. At different times in our lives we can be both the subjects and the objects of the work in which we are involved. The author's experience as co-principal investig…
Children's construction of a deceased parent: The surviving parent's contribution
Constructing a connection to the deceased is helpful to children in adjusting to the death of a parent. Using interview data from a subset of a larger study of childhood bereavement, this paper describes ways in which parents help children, ages 10-12, build this connection, provides case examples contrasting parental attitudes and behavior that are helpful and those that are not helpful to the child, and offers implications for clinical practice
Parental Death and the Adjustment of School-Age Children
Findings on the emotional impact of parental death for dependent children have not been consistent due to serious methodological limitations. The Child Bereavement Study investigated a community-based sample of parentally bereaved children and compared their responses to those from matched non-bereaved controls. Children and their surviving parent were assessed four months, one year, and two years after the death using standardized instrumentatio…
Parent-Child Communication in Bereaved Israeli Families
The nature of surviving parent-child communication in bereaved Israeli families is examined in terms of the culture of Israeli society. Concern is with the way the culture frames the parent-child relationship in the period shortly after the death. Twenty-three surviving parents and their forty-three children between ages of six and sixteen were interviewed four months after the death. Both parents and children seemed concerned with protecting eac…
Reunions between Adoptees and Birth Parents: The Adoptive Parents' View
This article looks at the reactions of adoptive parents to reunions between their adopted children and the children's birth parents. The focus is on how adoptive parents feel the reunion affects the family's integrity. Three types of family responses are identified: (1) closed, (2) divided, and (3) open. Acceptance of the differences between families created by adoption of children and those created by childbirth was a factor in the families' ope…
Children's Understanding of Funeral Ritual
One hundred-twenty children who experienced the death of one of their parents were interviewed about their view of the funeral ritual. Ninety-five percent of them attended the funeral. Shortly after the death they recalled little about the funeral. Two years later, children reported that it was important to them that they had attended. Attendance helped them to acknowledge the death, provided an occasion for honoring their deceased parent, and ma…
Detachment revisited: The child's reconstruction of a dead parent
During the year following a parent's death, children in a community-based sample were found to have developed an inner construction of the dead parent. This continued, though altered, relationship appeared to facilitate their coping with the loss and with accompanying changes in their lives. Implications for understanding the bereavement process and for interventions focusing on detachment are discussed
Children's reactions in the early months after the death of a parent
The reactions of a nonclinical group of 125 dependent children aged 6-17 years were examined within four months of the death of a parent. Focus was on normative behavior in the domains of the children's reactions to the death itself, their affective experience, their efforts at remaining connected to the deceased, their social network and support system, and changes in their families resulting from the death
Social work in health care: Directions in practice
Reunions between Adoptees and Birth Parents: The Birth Parents' Experience
Journal Article Reunions between Adoptees and Birth Parents: The Birth Parents' Experience Get access Phyllis R. Silverman, Phyllis R. Silverman Phyllis R. Silverman, PhD, is Professor, Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, and Coprincipal Investigator, Child Bereavement Study, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114. Lee Campbell, MED, is founder and past president of Concerned United …
Widow to Widow: How the Bereaved Help One Another
Widow to Widow
The hidden health care system: Mediating structures and medicine
Transitions and Models of Intervention
All transitions are associated with change. People, basically conservative by nature, tend to resist change. Any intervention needs to consider that reactions to a transition are affected by prior experience, by the way transitions are viewed in an individual's social network, and by what learning opportunities are available. Responses can be viewed as typical under the circumstances, with rites of passage and helpers available to guide people in…
Women over forty: Visions and reality
Reunions between Adoptees and Birth Parents: The Birth Parents' Experience
Journal Article Reunions between Adoptees and Birth Parents: The Birth Parents' Experience Get access Phyllis R. Silverman, Phyllis R. Silverman Phyllis R. Silverman, PhD, is Professor, Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, and Coprincipal Investigator, Child Bereavement Study, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114. Lee Campbell, MED, is founder and past president of Concerned United …
The hidden health care system: Mediating structures and medicine
Research, Clinical Practice, and the Human Experience: Putting the Pieces Together
The work of the clinician and that of the researcher are presented as representing 2 cultures that cannot exist without each other. A third culture is described to reflect the common human experience of death and grief that invariably informs the work of both clinicians and researchers. At different times in our lives we can be both the subjects and the objects of the work in which we are involved. The author's experience as co-principal investig…
Reunions between Adoptees and Birth Parents: The Adoptive Parents' View
This article looks at the reactions of adoptive parents to reunions between their adopted children and the children's birth parents. The focus is on how adoptive parents feel the reunion affects the family's integrity. Three types of family responses are identified: (1) closed, (2) divided, and (3) open. Acceptance of the differences between families created by adoption of children and those created by childbirth was a factor in the families' ope…
Widowhood and Preventive Intervention
Transitions and Models of Intervention
All transitions are associated with change. People, basically conservative by nature, tend to resist change. Any intervention needs to consider that reactions to a transition are affected by prior experience, by the way transitions are viewed in an individual's social network, and by what learning opportunities are available. Responses can be viewed as typical under the circumstances, with rites of passage and helpers available to guide people in…
Social work in health care: Directions in practice
Listening — a pathway to learning
This poem seems quite candid in its twofold message. The first message points out man's need for spoken communication, a need to share one's inner thoughts, and second, that we do not have adequate listeners. It will be my aim to help you find, and, in most cases, reinforce, your knowledge and application of listening skills and techniques, not only to academic pursuits, but also to your social life. From the moment that your alarm clock awakens …
The Funeral Director's Wife as Caregiver
Widowhood and Preventive Intervention
The Widow's View of Her Dependent Children
This paper reports observations made as part of the Widow-to-Widow program, an experiment in preventive intervention in which every newly-widowed woman under the age of 60 in a community of 250,000 was contacted by another widow to provide her with friendship and help during the critical period immediately after the death of her husband. Data presented here concern the widow's view of her child's reactions to the death, and her ability to maintai…
Widow
Transitions and Models of Intervention
All transitions are associated with change. People, basically conservative by nature, tend to resist change. Any intervention needs to consider that reactions to a transition are affected by prior experience, by the way transitions are viewed in an individual's social network, and by what learning opportunities are available. Responses can be viewed as typical under the circumstances, with rites of passage and helpers available to guide people in…
Women over forty: Visions and reality
The hidden health care system: Mediating structures and medicine
Widow to Widow: How the Bereaved Help One Another
Widow to Widow
Reunions between Adoptees and Birth Parents: The Birth Parents' Experience
Journal Article Reunions between Adoptees and Birth Parents: The Birth Parents' Experience Get access Phyllis R. Silverman, Phyllis R. Silverman Phyllis R. Silverman, PhD, is Professor, Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, and Coprincipal Investigator, Child Bereavement Study, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114. Lee Campbell, MED, is founder and past president of Concerned United …
Social work in health care: Directions in practice
Children's Understanding of Funeral Ritual
One hundred-twenty children who experienced the death of one of their parents were interviewed about their view of the funeral ritual. Ninety-five percent of them attended the funeral. Shortly after the death they recalled little about the funeral. Two years later, children reported that it was important to them that they had attended. Attendance helped them to acknowledge the death, provided an occasion for honoring their deceased parent, and ma…
Detachment revisited: The child's reconstruction of a dead parent
During the year following a parent's death, children in a community-based sample were found to have developed an inner construction of the dead parent. This continued, though altered, relationship appeared to facilitate their coping with the loss and with accompanying changes in their lives. Implications for understanding the bereavement process and for interventions focusing on detachment are discussed
Children's reactions in the early months after the death of a parent
The reactions of a nonclinical group of 125 dependent children aged 6-17 years were examined within four months of the death of a parent. Focus was on normative behavior in the domains of the children's reactions to the death itself, their affective experience, their efforts at remaining connected to the deceased, their social network and support system, and changes in their families resulting from the death
Reunions between Adoptees and Birth Parents: The Adoptive Parents' View
This article looks at the reactions of adoptive parents to reunions between their adopted children and the children's birth parents. The focus is on how adoptive parents feel the reunion affects the family's integrity. Three types of family responses are identified: (1) closed, (2) divided, and (3) open. Acceptance of the differences between families created by adoption of children and those created by childbirth was a factor in the families' ope…
Parent-Child Communication in Bereaved Israeli Families
The nature of surviving parent-child communication in bereaved Israeli families is examined in terms of the culture of Israeli society. Concern is with the way the culture frames the parent-child relationship in the period shortly after the death. Twenty-three surviving parents and their forty-three children between ages of six and sixteen were interviewed four months after the death. Both parents and children seemed concerned with protecting eac…
Parental Death and the Adjustment of School-Age Children
Findings on the emotional impact of parental death for dependent children have not been consistent due to serious methodological limitations. The Child Bereavement Study investigated a community-based sample of parentally bereaved children and compared their responses to those from matched non-bereaved controls. Children and their surviving parent were assessed four months, one year, and two years after the death using standardized instrumentatio…
Children's construction of a deceased parent: The surviving parent's contribution
Constructing a connection to the deceased is helpful to children in adjusting to the death of a parent. Using interview data from a subset of a larger study of childhood bereavement, this paper describes ways in which parents help children, ages 10-12, build this connection, provides case examples contrasting parental attitudes and behavior that are helpful and those that are not helpful to the child, and offers implications for clinical practice
Research, Clinical Practice, and the Human Experience: Putting the Pieces Together
The work of the clinician and that of the researcher are presented as representing 2 cultures that cannot exist without each other. A third culture is described to reflect the common human experience of death and grief that invariably informs the work of both clinicians and researchers. At different times in our lives we can be both the subjects and the objects of the work in which we are involved. The author's experience as co-principal investig…
Gender Specific Coping Patterns in Widowed Parents with Dependent Children
This article looks at how the gender of the surviving parent affects the coping styles of bereaved family's with dependent children. Interview data from five father- and five mother-headed bereaved families from the MGH/Harvard Child Bereavement Study were subjected to an in-depth analysis. The findings suggest differences in parental coping patterns that seemed to be gender specific. Mothers in this sub-sample tended to adjust their own prioriti…
It Makes a Difference
The Effects of Negative Legacies on the Adjustment of Parentally Bereaved Children and Adolescents
This is a report of a qualitative analysis of a sample of bereaved families in which one parent died and in which children scored in the clinical range on the Child Behavior Check List. The purpose of this analysis was to learn more about the lives of these children. They were considered to be at risk of developing emotional and behavioral problems associated with the death. We discovered that many of these “high risk” children had a continuing b…
The 2004 Tucson IWG (International Work Group): Charter for the Normalization of Dying, Death and Loss
A group of members of The International Work Group on Death, Dying, and Bereavement prepared a draft statement advocating the promotion of a public health perspective in all direct service approaches to end-of-life care. This statement, which we have called a Charter, is reproduced here. This is a draft of work-in-progress. The readers of Omega are invited to contribute their criticism, reflections, and/or additions to this document. Please send …
Lessons I Have Learned
Journal Article Lessons I Have Learned Get access Phyllis R. Silverman Phyllis R. Silverman * Phyllis Silverman, Ph.D., Sc.M, MSW, in her research and writing, points to the value of mutual help and experiential knowledge in helping the bereaved. As Co-Principal Investigator and Project Director of the Harvard/MGH Child Bereavement Study, her focus was on the reaction of children and adolescents to parental death. She has received many awards for…
Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health (22 works) · Psychology (21 works) · Medicine (14 works) · Developmental psychology (11 works) · Political science (8 works) · Psychiatry (7 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Clinical Psychology (5 works) · Computer Science (5 works)