A practical guide explaining the religious and other differences commonly met with in multi-cultural societies when someone is dying or bereaved.

Part 1. A Conceptual Framework : Historical and Cultural Themes. Murray Parkes, Laungani, Young, Introduction. Murray Parkes, Laungani, Young, Culture and Religion.Part 2. Major World Systems of Belief and Ritual. Rosenblatt, Grief in Small-Scale Societies. Pittu and Ann Laungani, Death in a Hindu Family. Gouin, The Buddhist Way of Death. Levine, Jewish Views and Customs on Death. Jupp, Christianity: Beliefs and Practices about Death and Bereavement. Alladin, The Islamic Way of Death and Dying: Homeward Bound. Walter, Secularisation. Part 3. Practical Implications and Conclusions. Papadatou, Children and Families. Murray Parkes, Helping the Dying and the Bereaved. Laungani, Murray Parkes,Young, Conclusions I. Implications for Practice and Policy. Murray Parkes, Conclusions II. Attachments and Losses in Cross-cultural Perspective.

Colin Murray Parkes, OBE, MD, FRCPsych, DL, is Consultant Psychiatrist Emeritus at St Christopher's Hospice and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist to the Royal London Hospital and the Tavistock Clinic, London. He is Life President of Cruse Bereavement Care and in 1996 was awarded an OBE for services to bereaved people.

Pittu Laungani was Reader in Psychology at South Bank University until his retirement in 2001. He died in 2007.

Bill Young is former Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at St Christopher's Fellowship, London.