While place attachment has received some recent attention in social science literature, such attention reveals the narrow partitions that have been employed in seeking to understand our bonds to the material environment. For bonds to place share much of the same phenomenology as bonds to our children, a favorite sweater, our cars, a pet, the family photograph album, and our own bodies. What such attachments have in common is their importance, for better or worse, in defining the self in a contemporary consumer culture. This linkage was clearly articulated by William James (1890): 
Our fame, our children, the works of our hands, may be as dear to us as our bodies are, and arouse the same feelings and the same acts of reprisal if attacked. ... a man’s Self is the sum total of all that he CAN call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes, and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down. (p. 291).

Attachment to Possessions

Disenfranchised grief in historical and cultural perspective.

Using depth interviews and participant observation, the predominant metaphors that emerge in pet owners' relationships with theiranimals are pets as pleasures, problems, parts of self, members of the family, and toys. These metaphors as well as patterns of interacting with and accounting for pets, suggest vacillation between viewing companion animals as human and civilized and viewing them as animalistic and chaotic. It is argued that these views comprise a mixed metaphor needed to more fully understand our fascination with pets.

Metaphoric Relationships with Pets

The subject of pet loss has received little attention within the field of psychology, which is surprising given the millions of people who form strong attachments with their pets and experience the death of a pet at some point during their lifetime The primary purpose of this article is to show why it is important for psychologists to understand how significant pets can be in the lives of their clients and to be sensitive to clients' grief in response to the death of a pet We discuss special considerations related to the effect of pet loss on families, children and the elderly In addition, we examine how psychologists can play an important role in helping people cope with the emotional impact of pet loss through grief counseling, consultation with animal health care professionals, and outreach

Pet loss: Issues and implications for the psychologist.

Couples' Perception of Stressfulness of Death of the Family Pet.

Foreword (William J. Kay) Preface (William J. Kay, Austin H. Kutscher) I: The Human/Companion Animal Bond. 1. The Moral Status of Animals (Bernard E. Rollin) 2. Pet Animals and Human Well-being (M.W. Fox) 3. Health Consequences of Pet Ownership (Erika Friedmann, Aaron A. Katcher, Sue A. Thomas, James J. Lynch) 4. Nonconventional Human/Companion Animal Bonds (James M. Harris) 5. When Pet Animals Die (Jacob Antelyes) 6. Population Aspects of Animal Mortality (Alan M. Beck) II: The Grieving Human Companion. 7. Grief at the Loss of a Pet ( Boris M. Levinson) 8. Psychosocial Aspects of bereavement (Herbert A. Nieburg) 9. Relief and Prevention of Grief (Leo K. Bustad, Linda M. Hines) 10. Healing Emotionally Disturbed Children Cope with Loss of a Pet (Mary Link) 11. Development of a Social Work Service to Deal with Grief after Loss of a Pet (Eleanor L. Ryder) 12. Social Work in a Veterinary Hospital: Response to Owner Grief Reactions, (Jamie Quackenbush) 13. Illness and Death of Pets: Role of the Human-Health-Care Team (Michael J. McCulloch) III: Veterinary Medicine Perspectives. 14. The Human/Animal Bond Revisited (Esther Braun) 15. Clinical Aspects of Grief Associated with Loss of a Pet: A Veterinarian's View (Marc A. Rosenberg) 16. Role of the Animal Health Technician in Consoling Bereaved Clients (Sally Oblas Walshaw) 17. Owner/Pet Attachment Despite Behavior Problems (Victoria L. Voith) 18. Owner/Pet Pathologic Attachment: The Veterinarian's Nightmare (E.K. Rynearson) 19. Death of Pets Owned by the Elderly: Implications for Veterinary Practice (George Paulus, John C. Thrush, Cyrus S. Stewart, Patrick Hafner) 20. Psychosocial Model of Veterinary Practice, William H. Sullivan, Carole E. Fudin) 21. Family Psychotherapy Methodology: A Model for Veterinarians and Clinicians (D.T. Wessels Jr.) 22. Epilogue: A Historical Perspective, (Egilde Seravalli) Contributors. Index.

William J. Kay

Papers

Pet Loss and Human Bereavement