Reference no: EM133306854

PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON DEATH AND DYING

From a psychological standpoint, death and dying carry many layers of meaning. Toward the end of their lives, individuals may begin to shift their identities to incorporate the reality that faces them. As with changes they experience throughout life, people use identity assimilation to minimize if not deny, as much as possible, this coming reality. At some point, however, they must accommodate the fact that their life will be ending, at which point the process of identity balance may start to allow them to face this fact with equanimity. Indeed, these shifts in identity as the individual adapts to the reality of death fit well with the Kubler-Ross change curve, which also begins with denial ¨ and ends with acceptance. The way that people die can also come to define their identities in ways that no other life changes can. Think about the way your views changed about one of those celebrities whose life came to a premature ending. Your memory of them is forever altered by the timing, if not cause, of their death.

That same process can apply to the way you think about the death of people who were close to you. Similarly, the ending of your life will alter your identity in the way that close ones will remember you. When you reach the point of thinking about your own life's ending, you may wish to take steps to leave a legacy that will continue to define you after you are gone, a process called legitimization of biography. Through this process, people attempt to see what they have done as having meaning, and they prepare the ''story'' of their lives by which they will be remembered in the minds of others (Marshall, 1980). Some individuals may put their memoirs in writing, and others achieve an internal reckoning in which they evaluate their contributions as well as their shortcomings. Psychologically, the dying process can begin well before the individual is in any real physical jeopardy.

People first start to think about their own mortality when they reach the point called awareness of finitude, which is when they pass the age when other people close to them had themselves died (Marshall, 1980). For example, if a man's father died at the age of 66, a kind of counting-down process begins when the son reaches that age. He anticipates the end of life and understands that life really will end. The notion that the awareness of life's end triggers an intense period of self-evaluation is also an important component of Erikson's concept of ego integrity, as we discussed in Chapter 8. Erikson emphasized that during this period of life, individuals deal with mortality and questions related to the ending of their existence by attempting to place their lives into perspective. Presumably, this process may occur at any age, as the dying individual attempts to achieve a peaceful resolution with past mistakes and events that can no longer be made up for or changed. Terror management theory also proposes that when people's thoughts of death are activated, either consciously or unconsciously, they can experience a wide range of beneficial effects.

They may adopt better health habits, be more focused on intrinsic rather than extrinsic goals, show more compassion, and be more motivated to have close interpersonal relationships. People may even be more creative, less likely to hold stereotypes, and feel greater attachment to their community. On the other hand, the ''terror'' part of terror management suggests that heightened awareness of death can come at a price. Awareness of mortality can be beneficial to people who are able to cope with stressful situations (Kelley & Schmeichel, 2015). Others who lack this ability may experience greater levels of anxiety and lower well-being