• Life's Last Gift
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Life's Last Gift

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A practical, compassionate end-of-life resource that explores the reciprocal and healing relationship between the living and the dying.
  • 24 October 2017
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An indispensable, compassionate end-of-life resource

After four decades of training volunteers to offer comfort at the bedsides of the dying, psychologist and Shanti founder Charles Garfield has created an essential guide for friends, family, and healthcare professionals who want to ease someone's final days but don't know how to begin.

Dr. Garfield presents practical advice about finding connection, honesty, and peace while being of the greatest service to those at the end of life. By focusing on the reciprocal and healing relationship between the living and the dying, which continues until the last breath, he offers a path toward clarity and wholeness, and even growth. Life's Last Gift is an emotional lifeline for anyone who feels lost and filled with grief during this final stage of life.

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Price: $25.00
Pages: 194
Publisher: Central Recovery Press, LLC
Imprint: Central Recovery Press
Publication Date: 24 October 2017
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781942094494
Format: Hardcover
BISACs: FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Death, Grief, Bereavement, BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Inspiration & Personal Growth, PSYCHOLOGY / Grief & Loss, SELF-HELP / Death, Grief, Bereavement
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Publishers Weekly

Life’s Last Gift: Giving and Receiving Peace When a Loved One Is Dying by Charles Garfield. Central Recovery, $15.95 trade paper (194p) ISBN 978-1-942094-50-0

Garfield (Sometimes My Heart Goes Numb), founder of the Shanti Project, a service organization dedicated to those with terminal illnesses, believes dying people need to hear someone say, “I will stand with you in the midst of despair.” From this standpoint, he entreats caregivers of the dying to make nine commitments to themselves and their loved ones to “heal without cures.” He encourages caregivers to be as present as possible by listening, speaking, and acting from the heart to set a foundation for care. Garfield tackles these topics with clinical experience as well as with the firsthand account of managing the end of life for his mother and father. In one reflection, he courageously shares his response when his mother brought up assisted suicide—although he understood her pain, he couldn’t actively allow her to die. Garfield shows how to resolve conflict and be supportive even when caregivers and the dying disagree about care. Deeply exploring tough topics such as pain management and relationship reconciliation, this resource will give readers a place to go for comfort, direction, and answers. (Oct.)

Charles Garfield, PhD, founded Shanti, an internationally honored volunteer organization dedicated to the care of the dying and those living with cancer and AIDS, and the Shanti National Training Institute, which takes Shanti’s model to organizations around the country and world. He has been teaching the skills of serving dying people for more than forty years and was named National Activist of the Year for his work with Shanti. Garfield has worked as a clinical professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California School of Medicine at San Francisco (UCSF) for more than three decades. While on the faculty of the Cancer Research Institute at UCSF, he was one of the early contributors to the burgeoning field of psychosocial oncology. A Fellow of the American Psychological Association, he is currently a research scholar at the Starr King School of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He also teaches courses on the end of life at the Metta Institute in San Francisco, where he is a founding faculty member of the training program for end-of-life counselors, and at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. Garfield writes for and serves on the editorial board of Greater Good, a national e-magazine from the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Science and the Greater Good.