Shame,Death, and Dying

This paper deals with the influence of shame on the way in which Western society, particularly North America, is coping with death and dying. From being a familiar event, death and dying have become a shameful aspect of life. Thus, this paper provides some understanding of this important transformation, and it challenges some of our present attitudes regarding death and dying. These human experiences are not the ultimate manifestation of a failure, either from a personal or a medical perspective, but the only way through which human beings acquire the fullness of life, as Christian faith reveals.     

Counselling on Death and Dying

The growing concern for improved quality of care for the dying and the bereaved is reviewed. The growth of the hospice movement, home-care teams and self-help groups are referred to, together with the attempts that have been made to evaluate the effectiveness of bereavement counselling. In the light of current work and formal psychological studies, an outline of the grief process is given. Reference is made to possible future developments in this field and to the importance of counselling skills being acquired by a wider range of people than at present.     

Sandman,Lars, A Good Death,On the Value of Death and Dying

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -     

Death and Dying in Camus' The Plague

ABSTRACT: Albert Camus' allegorical novel The Plague provides meaningful insight into the process of death and dying. As with other literary masterpieces the author shares with his audience his concern with and knowledge of the vicissitudes of the human condition. In The Plague Camus employs the reactions and responses of a community and its citizenry to an epidemic of the bubonic plague as a symbolic representation of the individual's grappling with death and dying. His main themes are those of separation and exile, despair and despondency, and helplessness and hopefulness.     

Amazing Grace: The Healing Effects of Near-Death Experiences on Those Dying And Grieving

Kenneth Ring (1991) argued that near-death experiences (NDEs) act as compensatory gifts helping individuals cope with and understand life's difficulties. He saw NDEs as conferring amazing grace on individuals whose lives were spinning out of control toward self-destruction. Expanding on Ring's contention that NDEs can be seen as healing gifts, this study presents evidence of seven categorical situations where participating in or knowledge of NDEs and nearing-death awareness experiences serve as healing agents in facing one's own death or the death of a significant other. NDEs and nearing death awareness seem to free persons from paralyzing death anxiety and, consequently, allow them to focus on additional ways to help each other face dying and grieving.     

Helping Children Accept Death and Dying Through Group Counseling

This article suggests that the new wave of openness about death in our culture and the elimination of the death taboo will not be completely accomplished without developing a generalized practice in death counseling with children. A brief historical perspective of research confirms the necessity of including children in discussions about death education. A taped counseling session with several preadolescent boys in a rural midwestern school demonstrates the importance of accepting the deep feelings and fears that children must deal with in order to be free from unnatural anxiety about death and dying as adults.     

Alcott's Little Women: A Study in Death and Dying

This article examines one approach to helping counselor trainees and clients gain insight into the death and dying process and its stages, and supports the use of literature as a counseling tool for helping clients confronted with the death or dying experience.     

Common Grief,Complex Grieving

In this article, the author reflects on the changes during the last 25 years in our understanding of grief and on the emerging new issues in the field of loss and grief studies. He identifies several significant issues, including the implications of violent death for public and private grief, the increased attention upon the family as a mourner, and new ritual patterns emerging out of changes in funeral practices in recent years. The essay concludes by briefly considering a number of issues shaping grief and our care for those who mourn.     

Death Attitudes,Palliative Care Self-efficacy,and Attitudes Toward Care of the Dying Among Hospice Nurses

Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings - Previous research has linked death attitudes, palliative care self-efficacy, and attitudes toward care of the dying among nursing students and...     

The Role of Religion in Physician Outlook on Death,Dying, and End of Life Care

Journal of Religion and Health - One of the many roles a physician provides to their patients is compassion and comfort, which includes tending to any psychological, spiritual, and religious needs...     

Death,Immortality, and Meaning in Life: Precis and Further Reflections

The Journal of Ethics - I offer an overview of the book, Death, Immortality, and Meaning in Life, summarizing the main issues, arguments, and conclusions (Fischer 2020). I also present some new...     

Dying to Be Old: A Sociological Analysis of Old Age as Cause of Death

While gerontology and issues of aging are attracting more focus and scholarship, little has been done to examine the social constructions of old age as perception, particularly in historical contexts. We use data from gravestones and burial records (1870s–1950s) of a single, large, midwestern cemetery to examine those who were said to have died of old age or senility for patterned differences in the application of these labels. We then compare this labeled group with all others of the same age range in the cemetery for fundamental demographic differences that would explain the presence or absence of these elder-status labels. Though differences in patterns between and within groups were often small and not statistically significant, they are typically in the direction predicted, and contribute to some historical sense of old age as social construction.