Drawing on psychoanalysis, literature, and personal experience, Necessary Losses is a philosophy for understanding and accepting life’s inevitabilities.

In Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst turns her considerable talents to a serious and far-reaching subject: how we grow and change through the losses that are a certain and necessary part of life. She argues persuasively that through the loss of our mothers’ protection, the loss of the impossible expectations we bring to relationships, the loss of our younger selves, and the loss of our loved ones through separation and death, we gain deeper perspective, true maturity, and fuller wisdom about life. She has written a book that is both life affirming and life changing.

Shortly after my mother died, a friend recommended a particular book on loss,

which I went out and bought. What surprised me most about that book was that it

didn't focus solely on loss through death, and I began a voracious campaign to

acknowledge, understand, and mourn the various kinds of loss I had experienced in

my life. NECESSARY LOSSES was a natural choice. I had long enjoyed Viorst's

writing for children (even as an adult, having spent many years in juvenile

publishing), so I was very open to both the author and the subject. And I wasn't

disappointed. Viorst has the credentials of a professional psychologist, yet she

brings to a profoundly serious topic the same warm, knowing style that makes

her kids' books so accessible. I found it incredibly healing. - Laurie Kahn