5. Contemporary Psychology and Death.
System-
atic studies of man's attitudes
toward death and dying
have begun only around the turn of this century.
They
have elicited information with regard to different age
groups,
sex, occupation, marital status, education, and
physical as well as mental
health and sickness. Most
of the results are, however, conflicting, and no uni-
versally accepted theory of the genesis
of the fear of
death has emerged. But it has become amply clear that
the term “fear of death” is a catch-all label which
hides
heretofore unsuspected complexities. Not only do the
emotions
described as death-fear range from simple
reluctance or aversion to think
of death to outright
terror, but these emotions refer to a variety of
“ob-
jects.” There is
fear of what comes after death (fear
of the effects of death), and fear of
the process of dying
(fear of the pain and anguish of dying). As to
the
therapy of the (pathological) dread of death and dying,
(that is,
when no valid medical reasons to expect im-
pending death exist), it appears that the two most
effective
approaches so far are that of psychoanalysis,
which considers
“anxiety” over death as but a special
case of a
general anxiety state which has become
“fixated” on
this particular subject, and hypnotic sug-
gestion therapy, for which Russian psychiatrists claim
outstanding
successes. In the case of apprehension and
fear in people actually dying,
recent experiments with
LSD have shown promising results. One should
be
careful, however, not to confuse the cure of the
pathological fear
of death or the chemically induced
relief of the anxiety of the dying with
a “solution” of
all the problems which the fact of
death continues to
present to the inquiring mind.
This does not mean that there is, or must be, such
a
“global” solution. However, it is important to re-
member that until very recently it was
generally as-
sumed that the answer to the
problems of death was
known, universally accepted, and it is still
considered
valid by many. This answer was
“immortality.”
