Handbook of Stressful Transitions Across the Lifespan

This volume provides a unique and valuable contribution to our understanding of the impact of stressful life events and mass trauma on the person, the culture and society in the course of the life span. It provides a comprehensive look at our psychological state of affairs at the beginning of the twenty-first century. There are several volumes that address some or most of these areas indivi- ally but this volume is unique in that it has brought together theoreticians, researchers and clinicians who address critical challenges in our lives. But we are now several months into the global financial crisis requiring a transition, not only for the western world but for the third world. How on earth do families in trauma zones – from Sri Lanka to Afghanistan, New Orleans to Gaza – cope with similar declining older relatives, with added traumas and zero medical resources attempt to survive? In news reports, politicians and financiers denying the inevitable and struggling for solutions that cannot be relevant to the new reality that they have yet to discover.

Processing Transitions in the Life Span.-Life Stress and Transitions in the Life Span.-Eriksonian Theory Applied to Transitions in the Span.-The Effects of Treatment Interventions on the Adult Brain due to Stressful Transitions in the Life Span.-Identity Transitions in the Life Span.-Stress, Mindful Parenting and the Transition to Adulthood.-Transitioning Recent Mass Trauma.-Education and Career Transitions.-The Career Transitions Faced by Adolescents and Young Adults.-The Impact of Trauma History on College Engagement.-Career Transitions Faced by Adolescents and Young Adults.-Life Cycle Transitions.-Ethical and Legal Issues in transitioning the Life Span.-Financial transitions across the life Span.-Assessing, Moderating, and Modifying Implicit Cognitive Processes in Alcohol and Drug Misuse in transitioning adulthood.-Coping with the Workplace and Job-related Transitions.-Trauma Growth After a Traumatic Event.-Family Transitions.-Life Course Transitions: Marriage, Birth and Divorce.-War and Trauma: Transitioning Back into Civilian Life.-Becoming an Adoptive Parent: The Transition to Adoptive Parenthood as a Stressful Life Event.-Transitioning into Retirement as a Stressful Life Event.-Transitions in Health.-The Influence of Contemporary Medicine and Medical Genetics on Stressful Life Transitions.-The Role of Animals and Animal Assisted Therapy in Stressful Life Transitions.-Transition in Health: Coping with Congenital Disease.-Transitioning the diagnosis of Cancer.-Functional Fitness, Life Stress and Transitions in he Life Span.-Transitioning a Traumatic Event: Its Effect on the Adaptation to Family and Self.-Women's Sexuality Across the Adult Lifespan.-Humor as a Way of Transitioning Stressful Life Events.-Stressful Markers of Health: Transitions in Aging.-The Influence of Food on Adapting to Stressful Life Events in the Life-cycle.-Cultural and Spritual Influences in Life's Transitions.-Lifespan Development Revisited: African-Centered Spirituality Throughout the Life Cycle.-Encountering stressful events as well as normative transitions as a test of religious beliefs/coping systems.-Self Regulation across some Life Transitions.-Age-related Patterns in Social Networks Among European Americans and African Americans: Implications for Socio-emotional Selectivity Across the Lifespan.-Some Predicators of Primary Control of Development in Three Transitional.-Periods of the Life Cycle.-Concluding Comments and Future Considerations for Stressful Life Events and Transitions in the Life Span