This article is a contribution to recording one dimension of the history of education in the field of death, dying, and bereavement. It offers some personal reflections on the history and current status of textbooks in our field that have been or are currently published in North America. The scope of this reflection looks back on the earliest textbooks in this field published in the 1960s and 1970s and extends to textbooks published in the early 2020s. Critical comments are offered on general trends or on textbooks that are no longer in print, but not on individual titles that are currently available for adoption and instructional use. Because I am the lead author of one such textbook, I do not choose to engage in invidious comparisons. Instead, this article includes descriptions of contemporary textbooks taken from the Amazon website.
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BalkD.WogrinC.ThorntonG.MeagherD. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of thanatology: The essential body of knowledge for the study of death, dying, and bereavement (1st ed.). Association for Death Education and Counseling.
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Cook, A. S., & Oltjenbruns, K. A. (1989). Dying and grieving: Lifespan and family perspectives. (2nd ed., 1998; HarcourtBrace). Holt, Reinhart & Winston.
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CorrC. A. (2014). The death system according to Robert Kastenbaum. OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, 70(1), 13–25. https://doi.org/10.2190/OM.70.1c
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CorrC. A. (2016a). Teaching about life and living in courses on death and dying. OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, 73(2), 174–187. https://doi.org/10.1177/0030222815575902
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CorrC. A. (2016b). Four lessons from “the horse on the dining-room table”. OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, 73(3), 250–262. https://doi.org/10.1177/0030222815576125
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CorrC. A. (2020). Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the “Five Stages” model in a sampling of recent American textbooks. OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, 82(2), 294–322. https://doi.org/10.1177/0030222818809766
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CorrC. A. (2021). Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the “five stages” model in a sampling of recent textbooks published in 10 countries outside the United States. OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying, 83(1), 33–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/0030222819840476
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CorrC. A. (2022). Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the “Five Stages” model in selected social work textbooks. Illness, Crisis, and Loss, 30(2), 320–332. https://doi.org/10.1177/1054137320932302
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CorrC. A. (2023a). The ADEC handbook of thanatology, 3rd edition: A review of Handbook of thanatology: The essential Body of Knowledge for the Study of death, dying, and bereavement 3rd ed, edited by Heather L. Servaty-Seib and Helen Stanton Chapple. Association for Death Education and Counseling. Xxvi + 623 pp. (ISBN 978-1-7361127-0-0 print). ($89.95); 978-1-7361127-1-7 e-book (not yet priced). Reviewed by Charles A. Corr. Death Studies, 47(2), 234–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2022.2034677
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CorrC. A. (2023b). Some reflections on the 50th anniversary of hospice care in America. OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying. https://doi.org/10.1177/00302228231218217
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CorrD. M.CorrC. A. (2020). Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the 5 stages model in a sampling of recent North American nursing textbooks. Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing: JHPN, 22(1), 61–67. https://doi.org/10.1097/NJH.0000000000000615
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