The Sixth Annual Grief Lecture will explore the features and causes of a profound transformation in the 20th century history of loss and grief.

The Loss and grief in 20th Century Australia: A historical perspective lecture will be held in Monash Medical Centre's Main Lecture Theatre in Clayton on November 15.

It will be presented by Professor of History at Australian National University's Research School of Social Science Pat Jalland.

Before coming to ANU in 1997, Professor Jalland held appointments at Curtin and Murdoch Universities and was a Research Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge University.

Her books and numerous articles include Death in the Victorian Family (1996) and Australian Ways of Death (2002).

After the First World War a deep cultural shift occurred which lasted until the 1970s.

Emotional and expressive grieving became less common than in the 19th century, ritual was minimised and sorrow became a private matter.

The lecture will focus on the impact of the two world wars and the revival of expressive grief since about 1980 when a second cultural change developed.

Waves of migration from southern Europe and Asia encouraged a growing diversity in death rituals and behaviour, helping spread the view that open expression of grief could be healing.

From the 1980s, loss and grief again became topics of intense public concern, stimulated by debates about AIDS, cancer, palliative care and euthanasia.

The lecture will also explore the growing influence of ideas about death and grief developed by psychiatrists such as Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and Beverley Raphael.

It will consider the new emphasis on the value of bereavement counselling, notably in response to national disasters, the creation of self-help groups for bereaved people and the new emotional warmth of 'in memoriam' notices and bereavement narratives.

The lecture is designed for counsellors, therapists, palliative care practitioners, psychologists, social workers, nurses, medical practitioners, teachers, welfare workers, clergy and the general public.

•           For more information contact the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement telephone 9545 6377, fax 9545 6399, freecall 1800 642 066 or email info@grief.org.au.