Death Anxiety: The Challenge and the Promise of Whole Person Care

Abstract

(from the chapter) This chapter discusses whole person health care and death anxiety. The uniquely human awareness of death gives rise to potentially paralyzing dread that is assuaged by perceiving oneself to be a valuable member of meaningful universe. Intimations of mortality stimulate efforts to remove thoughts of death from awareness, and nonconscious death thoughts instigate efforts to shore up self-esteem and reaffirm faith in cherished cultural values. Existing evidence (more is sorely needed) suggests that existential concerns affect patient outcomes as well as medical practitioner's diagnostic and treatment decisions. We believe these ideas accentuate the challenge and the promise of whole person care in the twenty-first century. In addition to mastering an enormous body of (rapidly burgeoning) information and acquiring and maintaining a host of sophisticated clinical skills, healthcare professionals devoted to the whole person care paradigm must also consider how illnesses (especially unexpected, severe, and terminal) threaten to puncture the delicate fabric of meaning necessary for constructive and satisfying human activity. This is a challenge for both healthcare professionals and patients. There is also another challenge for health professionals themselves. They need to recognize how their own nonconscious death fears. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).