A grant from the Lilly
Endowment, Inc. supported this project during the 1992-93 academic year. I am most grateful to the Endowment and
to program directors Jeanne Knoerle and Fred L. Hofheinz for their
encouragement, advice, and backing.
The 150 participants in
this study, virtually all of them strangers to me when I began, were remarkably
open in disclosing their unique transition experiences. (I often remarked that
each of them is the world's leading expert on his or her own experience of job
loss.) Without their generous
cooperation--painful for some, therapeutic for others--this book would not be in
your hands.
My initial anxiety
about finding willing participants was eased considerably by offers of help from
executive search professionals Gerry Roche and Ron Walker, and from outplacement
specialists Dave Maguire, Tom Holman, and Rose Begnal. John Fontana introduced me to the
Crossroads group in Chicago, Torrey Foster to Job-Seekers in Cleveland Heights,
and Dick Hanscom to the Career Initiatives Center in Cleveland. John Tydings opened the door to
potential participants in the Wahington business community. Kevin Dolan contributed many good ideas
that are acknowledged in the text; he also provided excellent leads to many
persons in the New York metropolitan area who proved to be willing subjects for
this study. John Leahy and Marylin
Dyer sharpened my focus at the outset; Gene Croisant and Tom McHugh helped me to
pre-test the questionnaire and offered helpful suggestions for the final
revision. And Charlie Hennessy came
to my rescue when I found myself, as this project began, sitting in front of a
brand new personal computer that was really a desk-top 747. I knew how to type
but not how to fly; Charlie was a patient tutor.
The paradigm underlying
the chapter on spousal support began to take shape in my mind 35 years ago in
conversations with my late Jesuit cousin, Father Jack Scanlan, who both taught
and practiced marriage counselling. Two psychiatrist friends, Ellen McDaniel and Ned Cassem, provided me with
reassurance, as this study began, that the theory outlined in Chapter Two does
indeed hold up in practice. Virgil
Nemoianu pointed me in the direction of most of the literary figures presented
in Chapter Four.
Helpful comments on the
first draft of the manuscript came from Trevor Armbrister, Mary Frestel, Bill
Johnson, Jack Limpert, Anne and Roger Stroh, Marty Walsh and Peggy Treadwell.
Also generous in their
willingness to read the manuscript were several of those mentioned above: Torrey
Foster, Dick Hanscom, Dave Maguire, and Gerry Roche. My agent Michael Snell knew that Bob
Adams, Inc., was the right publisher for this book; my editor there, Dick
Staron, was more than helpful in bringing this project into print.
To these, and to many
others who provided insights and assistance along the way, my abiding
thanks.
WJB