Thanatology 1025 Midterm Flashcards
Who introduced the term ‘death system’?
Robert Kastenbaum in 1977
Definition of death system
Interpersonal, sociocultural, and symbolic network which an individual’s relationship to mortality is mediated by his or her society
What we’ve been taught =
Death system
4 ways that death denial is present in society
- Increased life expectancy
- Decreased exposure to death
- Control over nature (pushing death away)
- What it means to be a human person
6 main factors that have affected mortality patterns in NA
- Industrialization
- Public health measures
- Preventive health care
- Modern cure-oriented medicine
- Contemporary families
- Lifestyle
Define industrialization
Increased production = increased standard of living
Define public health measure
Quarantine and sanitization
Define preventive health care
Vaccines, education, media
Define modern cure-oriented medicine
Medical model, technology
Define nature of contemporary families
Mobile and distant
Define lifestyle
Poor diet, smoking, inactivity
What is death ed
Learning about death (informal vs. formal)
Why is death ed needed? (main reason)
Ability to accept death and learn from losses helps us to live life more fully
7 additional reasons why death ed is needed
- Remove taboo language
- Diversity
- Understand alternate ways of caring for the dying
- Promote comfortable and intelligent interactions with dying
- Understand grief dynamics
- Understand children’s conceptions of death
- Assist in the development of a philosophy of life
Aries wrote a book titled
The Hour of Our Death (1982)
What four ways does Aries describe the evolution of Western attitudes towards death?
- Tame Death or Death as Neighbour 500-1100CE
- Death of Self or One’s Own Death 1100-1600CE
- Death of the Other or Death of the Beloved 1750-1900CE
- Invisible or Forbidden Death 1900-present
Tame Death or Death as Neighbour time frame
500-1100CE
Death of Self or One’s Own Death time frame
1100-1600CE
Death of the Other or Death of the Beloved time frame
1750-1900CE
Invisible or Forbidden death time frame
1900-present
What is Tame Death or Death as Neighbour 500-1100CE
- Familiar, natural, simple
- Accept inevitable
- Peaceful
- Exposure
- Everyone involved
- People died young
What is Death of Self or One’s Own Death 1100-1600CE
- Elite
- Individual is key
- Good death
- Renaissance, protestant reformation period
- Death is no longer welcome due to fear of hell or the afterlife
What is Death of the Other or Death of the Beloved 1750-1900CE
- Death is the intolerable separation of those bound together by human affections
- Romantic period in Europe and NA
- Burial grounds and grave markers symbols of love and remembrance
- Memorializing
- Spiritualism
What is Invisible or Forbidden Deah 1900-present
- Death = failure and shameful
- Remove death from the presence
- Focus on technology and science
- Embalming (preserving) and caskets
What are the 4 continua (Laugani)?
- Individualism vs. communalism
- Cognitivism vs. emotionalism
- Freewill vs. determinism
- Materialism vs. spiritualism
Individualism is
Achievement
Independence
Personal growth
Communalism is
Family and greater community (focus on groups)
Cognitivism is
Scientific endeavors, explanation of the physical universe from tangible/rational theories, and proof
Emotionalism is
Passion, personal beliefs, intuition
Freewill is
Independent choice/thinking and personal responsibility
Determinism is
Fate, karma, external forces
Materialism is
Consumerism, owning goods, acquisition of wealth
Spiritualism is
Spiritual understanding
Different types of media
Mass
Freedom of press
Television
How do different types of media tend to portray death?
- Graphic
- False info
Define cultural competence
Open mind and heart towards those who have been raised with different attitudes and beliefs
Define cultural humility
Respect to our awareness that we can never really be fully competent in a culture in which we don’t primarily identify
6 aspects of death that commonly demonstrate cultural variations
- Degree of death anxiety
- Concerns about dependency and care with relatives
- Fear of unrelieved pain in the dying process
- Religion and influence of religious/spiritual beliefs on the afterlife
- How grief is understood and expressed
- Funeral and burial rites
