Dealing with Death

Today there is a new openness about death--and indeed a new interest. . .books appear with titles such as. . . Your Dying. . .Terminal patients and their families are interviewed on television. Celebrities give candid details about how their malignancies affect their lives. (p.436)

This new openness to death and dying has served as foundation to both increased research in the area as well as to the development of a number of treatment strategies for dealing with death and dying in terminally ill populations. This paper examines a sampling of the over 350 publications that comprise the current literature on therapeutic intervention for the terminally ill. The emphasis in the reviewed material is upon how these various theories and strategies assist patient coping.

Death and Dying in Terminally Ill Populations: Treatment

Before examining specific treatment strategies, it is helpful to provide a general description of the death and dying issues faced by terminally ill patients. Most researchers and theorists believe that the most accurate description of the psychological reaction to a terminal prognosis has been provided in the work of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1969). Specifically, she states that the patient with a terminal prognosis passes through five stages. These stages are:

(1) Denial - At this initial stage, the terminally ill patient will not (or cannot) acknowledge t

. . .
ents but may, in fact, exert negative effects. In this regard, Grossarth and Eysenck (1990) studied 362 individuals receiving psychoanalysis for death anxiety related to terminal diagnoses of cancer and coronary heat disease. These patients all received psychoanalytic treatment for a period longer than two years. Survival rates for the group were then compared to a comparison-control group of 259 patients who had received less than two years of psychoanalytic therapy for their death anxiety. Findings showed higher survival rates among patients that received less treatment! Many treatment strategies focus on getting patients to move from the denial stage in their responses to death to the acceptance stage; this acceptance stage being believed to be the maximal coping strategy. According to Dean (1987) Adlerian therapy can be used to facilitate this process. She states that this form of therapy facilitates the patient's arrival at the acceptance stage by assisting him/her with specific coping tasks that mark the progression from denial to acceptance. Specifically, Dean (1984) states that patients need help to cope with such diverse tasks as: the unknown, the meaning of death, the pain arising both from the illness and the lo
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Reichman Schwebel, Basile Stone, According Greaves, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Specifically Dean, Specifically Round, Grossarth Eysenck, Szwabo Thale, Kellehear Lewin, Druss Douglas, terminally ill, ill patients, terminally ill patients, death dying, death anxiety, healthy denial, treatment strategies, terminal prognosis, art therapy, treatment modality terminally, ill populations, modality terminally, modality terminally ill, therapy terminally ill, terminally ill populations,
Approximate Word count = 2757
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Dealing with Death