PSY 116 – Psychology of Death and Dying – Lecture Notes
Part One – Learning About Death, Dying and Bereavement
Chapter 1 – Education About Death, Dying, and Bereavement
I. Key Terms and Phrases
1) Death education – teaching and learning about any aspect of dying, death, or bereavement; education involving death-related topics
2) Formal education – education conducted through programs of planned and organized instruction; for example, elementary and secondary education, college and university education, professional and postgraduate education, training and in-service programs for care providers, workshops and presentations for members of support groups and for the general public
3) Informal education – education emerging from everyday experiences and interactions outside programs of organized instruction; for example, education accomplished through everyday exchanges within a family or other social group
4) Teachable moments – unanticipated events in life that offer potential for developing useful educational insights and lessons, as well as for personal growth
II. The Emergence of Death Education
1) During the 1960s and early 1970s, death was a taboo topic in American society; research was quite limited.
2) Pioneers like Herman Feifel, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, and Cicely Saunders encouraged attention to this topic, beginning the development of what has been called thanatology (the study of death).
The Essay on Death And Bereavement
Death is not what it used to be. For most of human history, medicine could do little to prevent or cure illness or extend life, and living to a reasonably old age seemed to come merely with luck. Dying was generally a religious event, not a medical one. Because many deaths took place at home, usually family took care of their dying relatives, and usually had a personnel and direct relationship ...
3) These beginnings were soon followed by the death awareness movement, recognizing that throughout life everyone receives messages about death, dying, and bereavement in a variety of informal and formal ways.
III. Concerns That Might Lead Someone to an Interest in Death Education
1) Vocational concerns (e.g., teacher, nurse, hospice or funeral service worker).
2) Personal concerns because of an unresolved previous experience or an ongoing current experience.
3) Curiosity about the subject and/or a desire to prepare for the future.
IV. Four Dimensions of Death Education
1) Cognitive – what people know (factual information about death-related experiences, and its understanding, interpretation, and organization)
2) Affective – how people feel (feelings, emotions, and attitudes)
3) Behavioral – how people behave (how and why people act as they do in death-related situations)
4) Valuational – what people value (how death education can help to identify, articulate, and affirm the basic values that govern human lives)
V. Six Goals for Death Education
1) Personal enrichment
2) Informing and guiding individuals in their personal transactions with society
3) Preparing for public roles as citizens and professionals
4) Supporting people in professional and vocational roles
5) Helping individuals communicate effectively about death-related matters
6) Showing how development across the human life course interacts with death- related issues
VI. Some Lessons About Life and Living That Can Be Learned from Studying Death, Dying, and Bereavement
1) Limitation and control
2) Individuality and community
3) Vulnerability and resilience
4) Quality in living and the search for meaning
Part Two – Death
Chapter 2 – Changing Encounters with Death
I. Key Terms and Phrases
1) average life expectancy – the average length of life that can be expected for individuals of a specific age and often related to a specific society
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... most deadly plague: the Black Death. Death and disease were no strangers to the ... another animal. When the human population experiences an outbreak of the plague, there ... are three conditions that are plague-related. Bubonic Plague causes the classic ... was already dead and decomposing, or dying. Historian James Harpur wrote: When ... Books Inc. New York, NY 1996 Life During The Middle Ages, Earle Rice, ...
2) Communicable diseases – diseases that can be transmitted or spread from person to person
3) Cure-oriented medicine – medical science and health care primarily designed to cure, reverse the course, or halt/slow the advance of disease or other life-threatening conditions
4) Death attitudes – dispositions, postures; settled tendencies to acting, representing one’s feelings or opinions about death; the other component, in addition to encounters and practices, of overall experiences with death
5) Death rates – the number of individuals in a particular group who die during a particular time period; usually expressed as some number of deaths per 1,000 or per 100,000 persons in the population; also called mortality rates
6) Degenerative diseases – diseases that typically result from long-term wearing out of body organs, typically associated with aging, life style, and environment
7) Dying trajectory – the duration or shape of a dying process
8) Encounters with death – ways in which one confronts or meets up with death; an aspect of experiences with death
9) Experiences with death – the sum of one’s overall death-related encounters, attitudes, and practices
10) Industrialization – the organization of labor, especially manufacturing, into industries; often involving mechanization versus hand labor
11) The living-dying interval (according to Pattison) – the period between the “crisis knowledge of death” and death itself; divided into acute crisis, chronic living-dying, and terminal phases
12) Location (or place) of death – the physical location in which death actually occurs
13) Mortality patterns – typical ways in which one encounters death
14) Preventive health care – medical and health care primarily designed to prevent or minimize the likelihood of acquiring disease or putting one’s life at risk
15) Public health measures – community actions to protect or improve the health of the society; e.g., to combat threats posed by communicable diseases, provide safe drinking water, and dispose of sewage, garbage, and other contaminants
The Essay on The Black Death Disease Plague One
"It is hard to understand how anyone could not view the death penalty as morally problematic, . The Black Death was a disease that spread all over Europe. It was highly unpleasant and took only three or four days to kill you. Most importantly, it was the most contagious or wide spread disease of the time. The Black Death killed one third of Europe's population between 1347 and 1351. Historians ...
II. Encountering Death in America Today
1) There were 2,443,387 deaths in the United States in 2002, in a total population that the 2004 U.S. Census estimated to be approximately 288.2 million.
III. Broad Patterns in Contemporary American Encounters with Death
1) Death rates:
a) The death rate for males in the U.S. in 2002 was 8.5 per 1,000, while the death rate for females was just slightly higher.
b) Just 100 years ago, death rates in the U.S. were considerably higher than they are today; in 1900, there were 17.2 deaths per 1,000 for the total American population, by 2002, just 8.5 per 1,000.
c) Reductions in overall death rates have a significant impact on encounters with death; above all, most living Americans are likely to have fewer encounters with natural death than did their great-grandparents.
d) There are differences among declines in death rates in terms of gender, race, and social class. Death rates for males in the U.S. in 1900 were higher at 17.9 per 1,000 population than those for females at 16.5 per 1,000 population. By 2002, however, male and female death rates in our society were roughly equal. Members of the least advantaged socioeconomic classes tend on average to have higher death rates than members of middle and upper socioeconomic classes.
e) At the beginning of the 20th century, the very young in the U.S. were much more likely to die than they are today; overall death rates for infants were nearly 23 times higher in 1900 than in 2002. The U.S. continues to rank poorly, however, in international comparisons of infant mortality.
2) Average life expectancy:
a) Projected average life expectancy for all individuals born in the U.S. in 2002 rose to a record high of 77.3 years.
The Term Paper on The Black Death Plague Disease Bubonic
... years of the fourteenth century. What exactly was the Black Death? Yersinia pestis is a bacillus bacterium that causes the fatal disease ... being diagnosed with septicemic plague. The death rate is almost one hundred percent. Even ... the crewmembers were either dead or dying and the rats spread to the ... attacks the respiratory system causing pneumonia, high fevers, constant coughing, bloody sputum, and ...
b) The gender gap in average life expectancy for the population as a whole narrowed from 6.4 years in 1995 to 5.4 years in 2002, while the racial differential between the white and black populations narrowed from 6.9 years to 5.4 years.
3) Causes of death:
a) Leading causes of death in the U.S. changed from mainly infectious communicable diseases in 1900 to mainly degenerative diseases today.
b) The four leading causes of death in the U.S. (diseases of the heart, malignant neoplasms [cancers], cerebrovascular diseases, and chronic lower respiratory diseases) all fall into the category of degenerative diseases.
4) Dying trajectories:
a) Duration refers to the time involved between the onset of dying and the arrival of death (the so-called living-dying interval)
b) Shape designates the course of the dying process, whether one can predict how that process will advance, and whether death is expected or unexpected
c) Most communicable diseases are characterized by a relatively brief dying trajectory. Dying trajectories associated with degenerative diseases are likely to be lengthier, far less predictable, and may be linked with long-term pain and suffering, loss of physical control, or loss of mental faculties.
d) Although death is less frequently encountered in our society, when it does occur it is often associated with a protracted and ambiguous dying trajectory.
5) Location of death:
a) Changes from death occurring mainly at home in the past to death mainly taking place in public institutions at present.
b) Because death now often occurs outside the home, death is unknown, or at least not well known, to many of us.
IV. Six Underlying Social Factors Associated with Changing Encounters with Death Over the Last 100-150 Years in the United States
1) Industrialization – leading to improvements in food, clothing, housing, communications, and transportation systems
2) Public health measures – better understanding of disease and its prevention; improvements in basic sanitation and disposal of sewage; provision of safe drinking water
The Term Paper on Ethical And Legal Issues Of Death And Dying
This was not easy to put this paper together. Recently my mother- in- law passed away, and her death was devastating to the entire family as well many friends. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and became dependent as she neared the end of life. All anyone of us could do was comfort her with our expression of loves while we tried to comprehend what was taking place. We leaned close, whispered I ...
3) Preventive health care for individuals – vaccination and immunization; advice on healthy diet and exercise; warnings against health-related dangers
4) Modern cure-oriented medicine – introduction of antibiotics, curative medical procedures, advanced medical technology, and changing ways in which health services are delivered
5) The nature of contemporary families – nuclear vs. extended families; geographical dispersal of family members
6) Life style – nearly half of all deaths in the United States currently arise from or are associated with underlying causes that are, in principle, preventable, such as use of tobacco products, eating high cholesterol and high sugar foods, consumption of alcohol, lack of exercise, misuse of firearms, motor vehicle accidents, and risky sexual behavior