Colin Murray Parkes (born 1928) is a British

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

and the author of numerous books and publications on

grief Grief is the response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or some living thing that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, grief also has physical, cogni ...

. He was made an

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

for his services to bereaved people in June 1996.

Career

Since 1966, Parkes has worked at

St Christopher's Hospice St. Christopher's Hospice is a hospice in south London, England, established in 1967 by Cicely Saunders, whose work is considered the basis of modern hospice philosophy. Legacy Among the first staff at St. Christopher's was Florence Wald, who to ...

in Sydenham, where he set up the first hospice-based bereavement service and carried out some of the earliest systematic evaluations of hospice care. Parkes serves as an honorary consultant psychiatrist to St. Christopher's Hospice in Sydenham. He was formerly a senior lecturer in psychiatry at the Royal London Hospital Medical College and a member of the research staff at the

Tavistock Institute of Human Relations The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations is a British not-for-profit organisation that applies social science to contemporary issues and problems. It was initiated in 1946, when it developed from the Tavistock Clinic, and was formally establ ...

. Parkes is a former chairman and now life president of the charity

Cruse Bereavement Care Cruse Bereavement Support and its counterpart Cruse Bereavement Care Scotland are the United Kingdom's largest bereavement charity, which provide free care and bereavement counselling to people suffering from grief. Purpose Cruse Bereavement Su ...

. He acted as a consultant and adviser following the

Aberfan disaster The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rain led t ...

(October 21, 1966), the air crash of

Invicta International Airlines Flight 435 Invicta International Airlines Flight 435 (IM435) was a Vickers Vanguard 952, flying from Bristol Lulsgate to Basel-Mulhouse, which crashed into a forested hillside near Hochwald, Switzerland on 10 April 1973. The aircraft somersaulted and ...

in Switzerland (April 10, 1973), the Bradford Football Club fire (May 11, 1985), the capsize of the MS ''Herald of Free Enterprise'' in Belgium (March 6, 1987), and the Pan American Flight 103 explosion over Lockerbie (December 21, 1988). At the invitation of

UNICEF UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Devel ...

, he acted as consultant in setting up the Trauma Recovery Programme in

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

in April 1995. At the invitation of the British government, he helped to set up a programme of support to assist families from the United Kingdom who were flown out following the terrorist attacks of 11 September, 2001, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. In April 2005, Parkes was sent by Help the Hospices with Ann Dent to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

to assess the psychological needs of people bereaved by the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Suma ...

Writing and editorial career

Parkes worked with Dora Black as a scientific editor of ''Bereavement Care'', the international journal for bereavement counsellors. He also has served as an advisory editor on several journals concerned with hospice, palliative care, and bereavement, and has edited books on the nature of human attachments, ''The Place of Attachment in Human Behaviour'' and ''Attachment Across the Life Cycle''. More recently he has edited ''Death and Bereavement Across Cultures'' and, in 1998, with Andrew Markus, a series of papers which have now been published as a book entitled ''Coping with Loss''. This last work is intended for members of the health care professions. Recently Parkes's work has focused on traumatic bereavements (with special reference to violent deaths and the cycle of

violence Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or Power (social and p ...

) and on the childhood roots of psychiatric problems that can follow the loss of attachments in adult life. A quote from his 1972 work ''Bereavement: Studies of Grief in Adult Life'', "The pain of grief is just as much a part of life as the joy of love; it is, perhaps, the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment" was later made famous by Queen Elizabeth II as "Grief is the price we pay for love" in a message of support after the September 11 attacks.

Publications

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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Parkes, Colin Murray Living people British psychiatrists Officers of the Order of the British Empire 1928 births