Midterm Flashcards
Define thanatologist
Someone Who studies death dying and bereavement
Thanatology
Scientific study of death dying and bereavement
Define death and dying
Death-end of life (event)
Dying- process of getting dead (process)
Define bereavement
The state an individual is left in as a result of experiencing a loss (often through losing someone through death)
Thanatos
- Greek god of death(Greek for death )
- Freud’s term for the death instinct
Who first started talking about death?
Elisabeth Kubler Ross
- talked to people who were dying/terminally ill (seen as a big no no)
- she published books and people began following her
What is formal or planned death education?
Planned/organized instruction involving death-related topics
What is a death cafe
Cafe where people talk about death and eat coffee and cake
-objective to increase awareness of death and to help people make the most of their finite lives
What is informal or unplanned death education?
Death related education emerging from everyday experiences and exchanges
What are teachable moments ?
Unanticipated life events that offer important occasions for developing educational insights and lessons
-neither planned nor desired but generally moving and intimate
Ex. Children often learn about death when s pet or loved one dies
What are the four dimensions of death education? Know these
- Cognitive - facts and theories about death related experiences and issues
- Affective - feelings, emotions, and attitudes about death, dying and bereavement
- Behavioural - how people interact with dying and/or bereaved persons
- Valuational- the basic values governing people’s lives
Denial of death -Ernest Becker
Describes the modern death denying attitudes about death
-people shield themselves from it
Describes western, particularly North American, attitudes about death
What is death anxiety?
Fear of death or thanatophobia
-a feeling of dread, apprehension or anxiety when one thinks of the process of dying or what happens after death
What are some causes to why people feel anxious about dying ?
- unknown nature of what lies beyond this life
- we are all vulnerable to death
- inevitability of death
- pain and suffering while dying
- loss of control/losing ones independence
- dying alone
- fear of non existence/non-being
- worry of what will become of our loved ones
- death is not well understood
- media images of death are often terrifying
What are the 4 sub-scales on the Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale?
- Fear of own death
- Your own dying
- The death of others
- The dying of others
What’s the relationship between death anxiety and gender?
Females typically report higher levels of death anxiety than males
(Maybe females are more open about their feelings about death/dying than males)
What’s the relationship between death anxiety and age?
Young adults tend to report higher levels of death anxiety than older adults. Tends to decrease with age
What’s the relationship between death anxiety and religion ?
People who are uncertain about their religious views (ie. those who have doubts or moderate religious beliefs) tend to report higher levels of death anxiety
What’s the relationship between death anxiety and self-esteem?
Individuals low in self-esteem report higher levels of death anxiety than those high in self esteem
What does it mean that death anxiety is situation-specific?
People with different situations/experiences will have different attitudes towards death
- If in good health maybe they’re less anxious
- if they’re in poor health maybe they’re more anxious
What is the general ancient perspective of death and dying
-death is a curse and not a natural outcome of life (Adam and eve lived in a perfect place with no death until they ate the fruit and their punishment was death)
What is our death system
The ideals, values, and practises that shape how we deal with death; our healthcare system, or laws and the funeral service industry
Describe the four facet model which suggests there are four fundamental dimensions of coping with dying
The physical facet-The physical dimensions of the living: bodily needs and physical distress. Material existence is experienced directly with the senses
the social facet-include human experience concerned with social relations: family, groups, communities, culture, social institutions and society itself including the death system (includes all of one’s relationships)
psychological facet-our thoughts feelings and the entirety of human subjective experience can inspire the imagination and desire to understand end-of-life issues
spirituality-dimension of life that reflects the need to find meaning or connectedness to universe greater than oneself, and a sense of transcendence
What is religion
A set of organize believes and practises about the supernatural: embraces the spiritual dimension
What is the death origin story of the two messengers
First animal carries God’s message that human beings will have eternal life and a second animal carries God’s message that human beings will die. The second animal gets there first and the first animal gets delayed/sidetracked
What is the death origin story of the waxing and waving moon
All people live, die and then live again just like the moon does (goes from the waxing to waving stage)
-Hindus believe the soul reincarnates again and again on earth entering into many bodies, passing through many births, deaths and rebirth until it becomes perfect or reunites or becomes one with God
What is the death origin story of the serpent and his cast skin
Messenger got his message mixed up/switched it
- instead of snake is dying and he was living forever, the message was that snakes will live forever in humans will die
- Death was therefore an accident or mistake
What is the death origin story of the banana tree
-The people wanted something else to eat, so God lowers a stone with a banana on it. As punishment people will die after producing their own fruit just like the banana tree
What is this the ancient Egyptians prospective on death and dying
-Believed in the afterlife and spent a considerable amount of time and money preparing for it.
They thought they could take stuff with them and had their bodies modified preserve the body on the journey
-land of the two fields
-death was not an end but a transition to the other world
What was the ancient Greeks prospective on dying
-regarding death as a passage into an afterlife, but the after life is not always pleasant
-hades was the Greek underworld or land of the dead.
Tartarus-A pretty bleak and miserable place for sinners. A place of punishment for the bad spirits
Asphodel-A place for ordinary spirits/neutral place. There seem to be no reward or punishment, just an overwhelming dullness
Elysium-an eternal paradise or place reserved for heroes and the gods
What was the ancient Israelites perspective on dying? What is Sheol? (600Bc-300BC)
- regarded death as a transition to it shadowy underworld where life went on in a limited fashion
- Sheol: place of darkness to which all dead go (didn’t matter what kind of life you lived, both path led to the same place)
- dead were isolated from both the living and God
Who was Philippe Aries
Reconstructed the history on the western views of death
-he identified five historical periods of Western attitude toward death
List the five historical periods of the western attitudes toward death
- Tame or tamed death (early middle ages; 500ADto 1000 AD)
- Death of the self or one’s own death(Late middle ages; 1100 to 1300 AD)
- Remote and imminent death or thy death (renaissance; 1300-1600AD)
- death of the other (1700 to 1980)
- invisible death a.k.a. death denied, or been death (1900 century on)
Describe the first historical period of western attitude toward death
1. Tame or tamed death (early middle ages; 500ADto 1000 AD)
- that was seen as an inseparable and inevitable part of human life
- The dying person was aware of their imminent death and calmly and willingly accepted it
- death was a natural/normal event, part of every day life
- death was a public or community event and was considered merely sleep until the second coming
- infant mortality was high and old age was rare
Describe the historical period of western attitude toward death
2. Death of the self or one’s own death(Late middle ages; 1100 to 1300 AD)
-people became more aware of themselvesis as unique and distinct individuals, “I will die my own death”
-individuals experience great anxiety about what happens after death
Death was seen as leading to either reward or punishment in the afterlife
-The hour of one’s death became the most important hour of one’s life (when the fate of the soul was determined)
-either reward in heaven or punished in hell
-The art of dying is written as “guide” to death and Dying
Describe the historical period of western attitude toward death
3. Remote and imminent death or thy death (renaissance; 1300-1600AD)
- Death is even more frightening and they made great efforts to keep death at a distance (graveyards moved outside of town)
- morning customs are more strictly defined.
- Death is both enticing and repelling.
- New fear developed called taphaphobia (fear of being buried alive) and they develop techniques to prevent this (had men spend all night in the graveyard listening for bells that were attached to rope’s underground)
Describe the historical period of western attitude toward death
4. death of the other (1700 to 1980)
- Focus on relationships broken by death. Death is seen as an intolerable separation from the one who dies
- mourning becomes emotional and expressive; mourners lose control such as wailing (which was not appropriate in previous periods)
- death means reunion with deceased loved ones
- Seances become popular event - Communication with the dead
Describe the historical period of western attitude toward death
5. invisible death a.k.a. death denied, or forbidden death (1900 century on)
- death is a failure of medical science (deathbed scene is no longer romanticized)
- death is medicalized and banished from the home(removed from the general view of the public)
- death is offensive and should occur in private
- The whole process of death and burial is put into the hands of medical and funeral staff
- individuals fear dying alone in the hospital hooked up to a bunch of machines and tubes
What are death rates (mortality rates)
- The total number of deaths during a year among members of a given population group divided by the total population
- usually expressed as some number of deaths per thousand or hundred thousand people
What are infant and maternal death rates
- death rates among infants under a year and death of woman in the process of giving birth or immediately after birth
- both drastically decreased since the 1900s
What is the average life expectancy
An estimate of the average number of years individual could expect to live based on their year of birth
- in 2000 Canadas average of expectancy was 82 years old
- in 1900, 4% of the population was 65 years or older, in 2014, 15% of the population was 65 years or older (USA)
What are the main causes of death today
Chronic illness or degenerative diseases: diseases that typically result from a long-term wearing out of body organs, typically associated with aging, lifestyle, and environment
examples: cancer(esp. lung cancers), heart disease, strokes, Alzheimer’s disease
What are dying trajectories
Patterns of dying or the ways in which dying plays out. Very in their duration or length of time(brief or long) as well as shape(predictable or unpredictable)
What are the main causes of death in the past and what are the symptoms
-infection or communicable diseases: diseases that can be spread/transmitted from person to person
Exs: influenza, Tuberculosis
Symptoms: diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, fever, muscle ache
-in the 1900s influenza and pneumonia were the leading cause of death in the US