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Time: 4 hours
Level: Introductory
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 Introduction Resource- This unit will explore how knowledge and beliefs about death and encounters with death affect people’s lives. It will also examine the concept of a ‘good death’ from an individual perspective in order...
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| | Living with death and dying
- Living with death and dying Resource
- Knowledge and beliefs about death can have a profound effect both on the way people live and the way they approach their own death. In this Unit we look in depth at these issues. There are three sections....
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| | 1: Death and the meaning of life
- Death and Tolstoy Resource
- Inevitably, the way in which people deal with death, whether by denial or by the construction of a complex system of beliefs and myths, leads to questions about the meaning of life. For Julia Neuberger...
- 1.1: How do others find meaning in life? Resource
- There are those who share Tolstoy’s view that death is an end rather than a transition, and yet are much more optimistic about life. Hermann Bondi represents the views of many Humanists in the following...
- 1.2: The effect of death on life Resource
- In some cultures, or groups within a culture, there is an attempt to integrate the fact of mortality into the centre of living so that members are actively encouraged to see death as normal and to face...
- 1.3 Encounters with death Resource
- Although we each die only once, there may be many a brush with death throughout the course of a person’s life. The experience of having been close to death can have a major impact on the way in which a...
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| | 2: Near-death experiences
- Reactions to near-death experiences Resource
- A number of people have claimed that they have been at death’s door and can recall some of the sensations. Attempts to speak about near-death experiences (a term used to describe the extra-ordinary experiences...
- 2.1 Recurrent themes Resource
- When the accounts of people who have described a near-death experience are looked at side by side it is possible to identify some common features. This isn’t to say that all of these features are present...
- 2.2: The impact of near-death experiences Resource
- In many studies (Sabom, 1982; Toates 1999) the main effect of a near-death experience was to reduce a person’s fear of dying. Individuals surviving similar types of near-death crisis without an associated...
- 2.3: The significance of the near-death experience Resource
- The sociologist Allan Kellehear (1995) observes that most studies have had a medical focus, investigating whether near-death experiences could be the result of a lack of oxygen to the brain or another...
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- 3.1: Choices in dying Resource
- An enormous diversity exists in the way people view and approach death and dying. This diversity continues to be evident when people are faced with the knowledge that their own death is approaching. There...
- 3.2: Concepts of a good death Resource
- The concept of a ‘good death’ is highly contentious. Definitions vary according to different historical and cultural contexts. At certain points in history there has existed formal teaching about the proper...
- 3.3: Assessing the quality of dying Resource
- Read the following case studies. They are accounts of deaths which take place in different settings. They have been chosen as examples of different deaths and point up some of the complexities which might...
- 3.4: Case study 1: Vic Harris – a hospital death Resource
- Vic was a 68-year-old man with a long history of chronic (pulmonary) obstructive airways disease and was therefore a regular in-patient at the medical ward of the local hospital where he received treatment....
- 3.5: Case study 2: Li’s death – a residential home death Resource
- Li was a resident in a home where she had lived for the previous five years. She had led an exciting and unusual life, travelling from China at the age of 30 and living in England for the remainder of...
- 3.6: Case study 3: Andrew’s death – a hospice death Resource
- Andrew was a 23 year-old car mechanic who had been suffering from indigestion for some months before the GP referred him to a hospital consultant, who after a series of tests diagnosed cancer of the colon,...
- 3.7: Case study 4: The death of Meg – a home death Resource
- Meg was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 28, shortly after the birth of her second child, a diagnosis which was changed to systemic lupus erythematosis (usually called SLE or lupus), ten...
- 3.8: Comment on case studies Resource
- Vic was not consulted about his needs and the possibility of his death was never discussed. The uncertainty about his religious needs resulted in a staff member having to make a decision on his behalf...
- 3.9: Bad deaths Resource
- What about the other end of the spectrum? What constitutes a bad death? Is there less contention about what constitutes a bad death? Extreme pain and discomfort, humiliating dependence and being a burden...
- 3.10: Defining a ‘good death’ Resource
- Read ‘The good death?’ by Mary Bradbury. She suggests three representations of ‘a good death’. Try to categorise the case study deaths above using her criteria of a ‘medicalised’ good death, a ‘sacred’...
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| | References and Acknowledgements | |
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