David E. Balk: Dealing with Dying, Death, and Grief During Adolescence

In his book, Dealing with Dying, Death, and Grief during Adolescence, David E. Balk offers perspective into grief counseling and child and adolescent psychotherapy when adolescents are faced with the reality of death early in life. In his early chapters, Balk addresses adolescent development and the changes that adolescents experience. Once he has established a framework for adolescence, he examines how adolescents cope with death and grief when faced with the loss of someone they care about, or are themselves faced with a life threatening illness. He discusses interventions to assist adolescents in their coping and even brings to light recent studies and statistics relevant to adolescents dealing with life crises. Death and bereavement have hugely impact adolescents’ lives, and Balk’s book is an educational guide for clinicians and counselors who are committed to supporting adolescents during a time when they are facing these difficult experiences for the first time in life. He gives professionals and more general readers an understanding of adolescent development, their experience with death and grief, and the tools to help adolescents cope with these events in a simple but informative manner. He also offers insight into the future of thanatology, the study of death, and the progressions it has made over the years. In Chapter 1, ‘‘Adolescent Development and Serious Life Crises,’’ Balk informs readers about the reality of adolescence and how development is affected by life crises. The world and many parents view adolescence as a time of turmoil, conflict, and distress, but in actuality this is only valid for a small percentage of adolescents. Although adolescence is a perplexing time of physical, cognitive, interpersonal, and self-awareness changes, studies show that most adolescents consider their lives to be calm and satisfying. Counselors and researchers are often surprised by their resiliency in life crises, such as an adolescent becoming seriously or terminally ill, or grieving the death of someone close to them. Balk makes readers aware that, while these life crises present catalysts for growth and transformation, they also present conflicts in development. There are three phases of adolescent development: early, middle, and late. With each stage, an adolescent is expected to show growth, and the overall goal is to be able to master responsibility, intimacy, and individuality. At each stage, the adolescent has cognitive, behavioral, and affective responses. In a life crisis, any negative aspects or emotions of conflict seem to be heightened and place the adolescent in a more fragile state. In Chapter 2, ‘‘Adolescent Development,’’ Balk takes a further look into adolescents’ development and a specific look at the physical, cognitive, and personal changes that are important to note during adolescence. During this time, they achieve reproductive maturity, develop cognitive skills that far exceed those they had in childhood, and begin to use their experiences to reflect, reason, and see other points of view. On top of all these changes, adolescents’ brains are changing as well. Balk describes what has the potential to be very complex and confusing to readers, in very simple terms. The bottom line is that there are changes in the grey and white matter of the brain that allow metacognitive skills to emerge during adolescence. Throughout all of these changes is the strive for selfidentity. Balk summarizes the theories of Erikson, Marcia, and Josselon for readers to understand the extent of the process of achieving self-identity and all of the different & Taylor Burris tdburris@indiana.edu