Death, Society, and Human Experience

by Kastenbaum, Robert J.

• ISBN13: 9780205319367
• ISBN10: 020531936X
• Edition: 7th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-01-01
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Summary

The landmark text in death education, providing an interdisciplinary approach to understanding death and the dying process. Using case examples and exercises, students can reflect upon their own experiences with death. I have found no better text on the market that deals as fully and as completely with issues of death as Kastenbaum's Death, Society, and Human Experience. It is organized according to the same structural principles as my own lectures and I find it extremely easy to fit into my style. The presentation is very clear and stimulating for students. I have found the Instructor's Manual as useful in preparing lectures and exams as the over-all text is for students. Andrew Barclay, Michigan State University, reviewer.

Table of Contents

Preface	xv
As We Think About Death	1	(28)
Not Thinking About Death: A Failed Experiment	3	(1)
Listening a Communicating	4	(1)
Your Self-Inventory of Attitudes, Beliefs, and Feelings	4	(6)
Some Answers--and The Questions They Raise	10	(4)
Knowledge Base	10	(1)
Attitudes, Experiments, Beliefs, Feelings	11	(2)
How Does State on Mind Affect Death-Related Behavior?	13	(1)
Humans Are Mortal: But What Does That Have to Do With Me?	14	(1)
Anxiety, Denial, and acceptance: Three Core Concepts	15	(1)
Theories and Studies of Death Anxiety	15	(5)
How Is Death Anxiety Studied?	15	(1)
How Does Death Anxiety Influence Our Lives? Theoretical Perspectives	16	(1)
How Much Do We Fear Death?	17	(1)
Are There Gender Differences in Death Anxiety?	17	(1)
Are There Age Differences in Death Anxiety?	17	(1)
Is Death Anxiety Related to Mental Health and Illness?	18	(1)
Does Religious Belief Lower or Raise Death Anxiety?	19	(1)
Back to Death Anxiety Theory	19	(1)
Accepting and Denying Death	20	(5)
Types and Contexts of Acceptance and Denial	22	(1)
The Interpersonal Side of Acceptance and Denial	23	(1)
Anxiety, Denial, and Acceptance: How Should We Respond?	23	(1)
Another Kennedy Died: How Did We Respond?	24	(1)
Summary	25	(4)
What Is Death? What does death mean?	29	(32)
Competing Ideas about the Nature and Meaning of Death	30	(3)
``When,'' ``What,'' and ``Why'' Questions about Death	30	(3)
Biomedical Approaches to the Definition of Death	33	(7)
Traditional Determination of Death	34	(1)
Ways of ``Being Dead''	35	(1)
Brain Death and the Harvard Criteria	36	(2)
Whole-Brain or Neocoritical Death?	38	(2)
Event Versus State	40	(1)
What Does Death Mean?	40	(6)
Interpretations of The Death State	41	(1)
Enfeebled Life	41	(1)
Continuation	41	(1)
Perpetual Development	41	(1)
Waiting	42	(1)
Cycling and Recycling	43	(1)
Nothing	43	(2)
Virtual, Therefore Not Death	45	(1)
Implications of the Ways in Which We Interpret Death	45	(1)
Conditions that Resemble Death	46	(3)
Inorganic and Unresponsive	46	(1)
Sleep and Altered States of Consciousness	47	(1)
Beings Who Resemble or Represent Death	48	(1)
Death As a Person	49	(3)
How We Personified Death: 1971	49	(2)
How We Personify Death Today	51	(1)
Has Dr. Kevorkian Become a Death Icon?	51	(1)
Conditions that Death Resembles	52	(1)
Social Death	52	(1)
Phenomenological Death	53	(1)
Death as an Agent of Personal, Political, and Social Change	53	(5)
The Great Leveler	54	(1)
The Great Validator	54	(1)
Death Unites/Separates	55	(1)
The Ultimate Problem or the Ultimate Solution?	56	(1)
The Ultimate Meaningless Event	57	(1)
Summary	58	(3)
The Death System	61	(66)
A World without Death	63	(3)
General Consequences	64	(1)
Personal Consequences	64	(2)
Basic Characteristics of the Death System	66	(14)
A Working Definition	66	(1)
Components of the Death System	66	(5)
Functions of the Death System	71	(9)
How Our Death System Has Been Changing--and the ``Deathniks'' Who Are Making a Differences	80	(2)
Changing Ways of Life, Changing Ways of Death	80	(1)
The Beginnings of Death Education, Research and Counseling	81	(1)
Causes of Death: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow	82	(1)
Basics Terms and Concepts	83	(5)
Death Learns to Wait: The Increase in Life Expectancy and Longevity	83	(1)
Leading Causes of Death in the United States Today	84	(3)
Causes of Death in the Future?	87	(1)
Summary	88	(3)
Dying
Transition from life	91	(2)
Dying as Transition	92	(1)
What Is Dying and When Does It Begin?	93	(5)
Individual and Interpersonal Responses	93	(2)
Onset of the Dying Process: Alternative Perspectives	95	(3)
Trajectories of Dying: From Beginnings to End	98	(6)
Certainty and Time	99	(1)
The Lingering Trajectory	100	(1)
The Expected Quick Trajectory	101	(1)
The Unexpected Quick Trajectory	102	(1)
Life-or-Death Emergencies	103	(1)
Research into Trajectories of Dying	104	(1)
Health People Who Are at Risk: Hemophilia	104	(2)
Guarded Feelings, Subtle Communications	106	(5)
Difficulties in Communication	106	(1)
Doctor-Patient Communication: The SUPPORT Study	107	(1)
Improving Communication	108	(3)
Individuality and Universality in the Experience of Dying	111	(3)
Factors That Influence the Experience of Dying	111	(3)
Theoretical Modes of the Dying Process	114	(8)
Do We Die in Stages?	114	(5)
A Developmental Coping Model of the Dying Process	119	(1)
The Dying Person's Own Reality As the Model	119	(1)
A Multiple Perspective Approach	120	(1)
Your Deathbed Scene	121	(1)
Summary	122	(5)
The Hospice Approach to Terminal Care	127	(28)
Hospice: A New Flowering From Ancient Roots	128	(2)
Standards of Care for the Terminally Ill	130	(2)
Hidden or Implicit Standards of Care	131	(1)
Proposed Standards Recommended by the Intentional Task Force	131	(1)
Establishment of Hospice Programs in The United States	132	(3)
From Guidelines to Operational Programs	132	(1)
Full-Service and Partial-Service Hospices	133	(2)
The Hospice in Action	135	(3)
Entering St. Christopher's	135	(1)
Mother's Last Moments: A Daughter's Experience	136	(1)
Adult Respite Care	137	(1)
Hospice-Inspired Care for a Variety of People	138	(5)
Hospice-Inspired Care for Children	138	(1)
Hospice Care for People with AIDS	139	(1)
Hospice Care for Nursing Home Residents	140	(1)
Hospice-Inspired Care for Prisoners, the Homeless, and the Impoverished?	141	(1)
Hospice Care on the International Scene	142	(1)
Does Hospice Care Prevent and Relieve Suffering?	143	(5)
Why Pain Must Be Controlled	143	(2)
Other Symptoms and Problems	145	(2)
Your Deathbed Scene, Revisited	147	(1)
Access to Hospice Care and the Decision-Making Process	148	(3)
Summary	151	(4)
End-of-Life Issues and Decisions	155	(20)
From Description to Decision Making	156	(1)
Should Everybody Participate in End-of-Life Decisions?	156	(1)
The Living Will and Its Impact	157	(2)
Right-to-Die Decisions that We Can Make	159	(13)
From Living Will to Patients' Self-Determination Act	159	(2)
Informed Consent and the Patients' Self-Determination Act	161	(3)
Five Wishes: A New Advance Directive Option	164	(1)
The Five Wishes	165	(3)
Evaluating the Five Wishes	168	(1)
A Right Not to Die? The Cryonics Alternative	169	(1)
A Perspective on End-of-Life Decisions	170	(2)
Summary	172	(3)
Suicide	175	(36)
The Statistical Profile	177	(3)
United States and World Suicide Rates	178	(1)
What About Suicide Attempts	179	(1)
The Human Side	180	(1)
Three Problem Areas	180	(11)
Youth Suicide	180	(3)
Do Children Commit Suicide?	183	(2)
Suicide among Elderly People	185	(1)
The Lethality of Suicide Attempts in the Later Adult Years	186	(1)
Later Adult Years	186	(1)
Preventing Suicide in the Later Adult Years	186	(1)
Suicide among Native Americans	187	(1)
High-Risk Situations for Suicide	188	(3)
Balancing Individual and Cultural Influences on Suicide	191	(1)
Some Cultural Meanings of Suicide	191	(5)
Suicide As Sinful	191	(2)
Suicide As Criminal	193	(1)
Suicide As Weakness or Madness	194	(1)
Suicide As ``The Great Death''	194	(1)
Suicide As a Rational Alternative	195	(1)
A Powerful Sociological Theory of Suicide	196	(2)
The Importance of Social Integration	196	(1)
Four Types of Suicide	197	(1)
Some Individual Meanings of Suicide	198	(5)
Suicide for Reunion	198	(1)
Suicide for Rest and Refuge	198	(1)
Suicide for Revenge	198	(2)
Suicide As the Penalty for Failure	200	(1)
Suicide As a Mistake	201	(1)
A Psychoanalytical Approach to Suicide	202	(1)
The Descent Toward Suicide	202	(1)
Facts, Myths, and Guidelines	203	(1)
Popular Myths about Suicide	203	(1)
Suicide Prevention	204	(2)
Individual Guidelines to Suicide Prevention	205	(1)
Systematic Approaches to Suicide Prevention	205	(1)
Summary	206	(5)
Violent Death: Murder, Terrorism, Disaster, and Accident	211	(34)
Murder	213	(12)
Overview	213	(1)
Murder: The Statistical Picture	213	(2)
Patterns of Murder in the United States	215	(1)
Domestic Violence	215	(3)
Young Men with Guns	218	(2)
Mass and Serial Kellers: Who Are They and Why Do They Do It?	220	(13)
Political Murder: Assassination in the United States	233
Terrorism	225	(12)
Who Is the Terrorist?	225	(3)
Twentieth-Century Terrorism	228	(3)
Terrorism and the Death System Today	231	(6)
Accident and Disaster	237	(4)
Accidents	237	(3)
Natural Disasters	240	(1)
Summary	241	(4)
Euthanasia, Assisted Death, and the Right To Die	245	(30)
``I Swear by Apollo the Physician'': What Happened to the Hippocratic Oath?	246	(1)
Key Terms and Concepts	247	(3)
The Black Stork	248	(1)
The Ventilator As Example of Life-and-Death Decisions	248	(2)
Our Changing Attitudes Toward A Right to Die	250	(2)
Survey Findings	250	(2)
The Right-to-Die Dilemma: Case Examples	252	(11)
The Ethics of Withdrawing Treatment: The Landmark Quinlan Case	252	(2)
``It's Over, Debbie'': Compassion or Murder?	254	(2)
An Arrow through the Physician's Armor	256	(1)
Does a person Have to Be Dying to Have the Right to Die?	257	(1)
Elizabeth Bouvia	257	(2)
Competent to Decide?	259	(1)
A Supreme Court Ruling: The Nancy Cruzan Case	260	(3)
Dr. Kevorkian and the Assisted Suicide Movement	263	(8)
The Netherlands: A Social Experiment Watched Closely by the World	263	(1)
Australia: Yes, and Then No	264	(1)
Assisted Death in the Kevorkian Manner	265	(1)
Kevorkian's Agenda	266	(1)
Kevorkian's Method	266	(1)
Evaluating Kevorkian's Approach	267	(2)
Compassion in Dying: An Alternative Model	269	(1)
New Developments in the Legalization of Assisted Suicide	270	(1)
Summary	271	(4)
Death in the World of Childhood	275	(38)
Adult Assumptions about Children and Death	277	(12)
Children Do Think about Death	279	(1)
Early Experiences with Death in Childhood	279	(2)
Death in the Songs and Games of Childhood	281	(1)
Research and Clinical Evidence	281	(2)
Research Case Histories	283	(4)
Reflections and Questions	287	(2)
Concepts of Death: Developing Through Experience	289	(7)
``Auntie Death's'' Pioneering Study	289	(2)
Evaluating Nagy's Contribution	291	(1)
Are Concepts of Death Related to Cognitive Level, Gender, and Social Class?	291	(2)
Does Anxiety Influence Children's Thoughts about Death?	293	(1)
Cultural Influences on Children's Concepts of Death	294	(2)
How Do Children Cope With Bereavement?	296	(4)
A Death in the Family: Effects on the Child	296	(1)
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following a Violent Death	297	(2)
Long-Term Effects of Childhood Bereavement	299	(1)
Helping Children Cope with Bereavement	300	(2)
The Dying Child	302	(5)
Care of the Dying Child	304	(1)
Siblings of the Dying Child	305	(1)
The Stress of Working with Dying Children	306	(1)
Sharing the Child's Concerns: A Few Guidelines	307	(1)
The ``Right'' to Decide: Should the Child's Voice be Heard?	308	(1)
Summary	309	(4)
Bereavement, Grief, and Mourning	313	(84)
Defining our Terms: Bereavement, Grief, Mourning	316	(9)
Bereavement: An Objective Fact	316	(1)
Grief: A Painful Response	317	(3)
Mourning: A Signal of Distress	320	(5)
Theoretical Perspectives on Grief	325	(4)
The Griefwork Theory	325	(2)
Evaluation of the Griefwork Theory	327	(1)
Other Theoretical Approaches to Understanding Grief	328	(1)
How Do People Recover From Grief?	329	(12)
When a Spouse Dies	329	(5)
Types of Recovery from the Impact of Marital Bereavement	334	(1)
Unresolved Grief	335	(2)
The Family That Has Lost a Child	337	(4)
The Grief of Grandparents	341	(1)
Bereavement in Later Life	341	(3)
Sorrow upon Sorrow, Loss upon Loss	341	(1)
Grief Responses to Traumatic and Stigmatized Deaths	342	(2)
Are Bereaved People at Higher Risk for Death?	344	(3)
Differential Mortality Risk: The Statistical Pattern	344	(1)
Who Is Most at Risk?	344	(1)
What Are the Leading Causes of Death among the Bereaved?	345	(1)
Hidden and Disenfranchised Grief	346	(1)
Limited Support for the Bereaved	347	(2)
American Society's Discomfort with Grief and Mourning	347	(1)
Time for Grief--But Not Much Time	348	(1)
Meaningful Help for Bereaved People	349	(3)
Widow-to-Window: The Phyllis Silverman Interview	350	(1)
Helpful and Unhelpful Responses to a Bereaved Person	351	(1)
Professional Help	351	(1)
Summary	352	(5)
The Funeral Process
What Do Funerals Mean to Us?	357	(3)
From Dead Body to Living Memory: A Process Approach	360	(8)
Common Elements of the Funeral Process	360	(6)
The Funeral Service	366	(1)
Memorializing the Decreased	367	(1)
Getting On with Life	367	(1)
Making Death ``Legal''	368	(3)
Establishing the Facts of Death	368	(1)
The Medical Examiner and the Autopsy	369	(1)
Body, Property, and the Law	370	(1)
What Does the Funeral Process Accomplish?	371	(9)
When Great People Die	372	(1)
Balancing the Claims of the Living and the Dead	372	(8)
Memories of Our People: Cemeteries in the United States	380	(4)
The Neighborhood Cemetery	381	(1)
Ethnic Cemeteries in the United States	381	(3)
The Place of the Dead in Society: Yesterday and Today	384	(5)
When Are the Dead Important to the Living?	384	(1)
American Memory and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial	385	(2)
An Ethical Position on the Treatment of Human Remains: The Vermillion Accord	387	(1)
``You Were the Best Dog Ever'': The Pet Cemetery	387	(2)
Current Developments: A Funeral Director's Perspective	389	(2)
Improving the Funeral Process	391	(2)
Alternative Funerals	391	(1)
Spontaneous Memorialization in Response to Violent Death	392	(1)
Summary	393	(4)
Do We Survive Death?	397	(36)
Concept of Survival in Historical Perspective	398	(4)
Does Survival Have to Be Proved?	400	(2)
Near-Death Experiences: New Evidence for Survival?	402	(11)
Evidence Favoring the NDE As Proof of Survival	404	(1)
The Sabom Study: Independent Verification of NDe Phenomena	405	(1)
Eliminating Other Explanations	405	(1)
Some Problems with NDE Findings	406	(1)
Evidence and Logic against the Near-Death Experience As Proof of Survival	407	(2)
Mystical, depersonalization, and hyperalertness responses to crisis	409	(1)
When Do People Not Have NDEs? An Alternative Explanation	409	(1)
Are NDEs Hallucinations?	410	(1)
NDEs As Exercises in Religious Imagination?	410	(1)
The NDER As a Healing and Illuminating Metaphor	411	(1)
What Are We Learning from Near-Death Experience Metaphor	412	(1)
The Dead as Evidence for Survival	413	(8)
Deathbed Escorts: Safe Conduct to the Other World	414	(1)
Guardian Angels	415	(1)
Communicating with the Dead? The Medium and the Channeler	416	(1)
When Spiritism Was in Flower	417	(1)
Channeling and Past Life Regression	417	(1)
Ghosts	418	(1)
The Ghost Dance: A Peaceful Vision Becomes a Tragedy	419	(2)
Reincarnation	421	(2)
Should We Survive Death?	423	(1)
But What Kind of Survival?	424	(1)
Your Thoughts on Survival: A Review	425	(2)
The Suicide-Survival Connection	427	(1)
Summary	428	(5)
How Can We Help?	433	(43)
The promise of death education and counseling
Death Educators and Counselors: The ``Border Patrol''	435	(1)
Death Education in Historical Perspective	436	(3)
From Ancient Times	436	(3)
Death Education and Counseling: The Current Scene	439	(3)
The Expanding Scope of Death Education	441	(1)
Counseling and the Counselors	442	(3)
Characteristics of Professionals in the Death System	443	(1)
Counseling and Psychotherapy	444	(1)
How We All Can Help	445	(3)
Summary	448	(8)
Good Life, Good Death?
Trying to make sense of it all	451	(2)
A Father Dies; A Mission Begins	453	(1)
A Shift in the Meaning of Life and Death?	454	(2)
Horrendous Death	456	(8)
The Golden Rule Revisited	460	(2)
Are We Live or on Tape? The Life-and-Death Challenges of Virtual Reality	462	(2)
``The Good Death'': Fantasy or Reality?	464	(3)
From Good Life to Good Death: A Personal Statement	467	(1)
Summary	468	(2)
Appendix: Selected Learning Resources	470	(6)
Index	476