Thanatology

I. Introduction

Thanatology, study or science of the experience of dying and bereavement. Although people in all societies have speculated about death, the systematic study of its experience is a recent development. In 20th-century Western culture, until the last few decades, a taboo existed against studying something as frightening and personal as death. Many people still believe that studying the dying is cold and heartless, but thanatologists consider their work potentially helpful to everyone, because all human beings eventually must die. In the 1950s and '60s the work of various social scientists opened the way to the study of the psychology of dying and to the development of programs for counseling and therapy to deal with the deep emotional problems associated with death in modern society. The work that most influenced public considerations of dying and bereavement is On Death and Dying (1969) by the Swiss-born psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.


II. Death Counseling and Problems of the Bereaved

The counseling of dying patients and their loved ones is commonly based on the general model of the experience of dying that has been proposed by Kübler-Ross and others. They believe that the dying patient usually goes through a series of stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), although they recognize that an individual may show signs of more than one stage at any time and may move back and forth between stages. Confronted with the news that they are terminally ill, most patients seek to deny its truth. When they do face the grim reality, they often feel great anger and rage. Many then begin a kind of bargaining process, promising reforms in return for recovery. Depression commonly sets in soon after this bargaining fails to work. If patients receive adequate counseling and support from loved ones, they ultimately accept their approaching death and are able to die peacefully. Dying individuals and their loved ones go through the human grieving process. Although the experience of grieving varies in some respects among societies and individuals, its basic aspects seem to be universal and biological. Counseling today is concerned with helping patients and loved ones to grieve naturally, without repressing their emotions.


III. Trends in the U.S.

Individual and group counseling by professionals has grown steadily in the U.S. in recent years. In alleviating the suffering of dying and grieving persons, human support, including warmth, open acceptance, sympathy, and love, is most important. Those who are facing death or the loss of a loved one often find that, because they share the same problem, they can offer the best support to one another. One institutional outcome of this realization has been the hospice movement, in which terminally ill patients have increased control and support in determining how they experience the medical and emotional aspects of dying.

Jack D. Douglas, M.A., Ph.D. Professor of Sociology, University of California, San Diego. Author of The Social Meanings of Suicide. Coauthor of Existential Sociology. Editor, The Sociologies of Everyday Life.

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