Coping With Death

Coping with death

Introduction

Death and the process of dying is common to all cultures and coping before it can be carried out in different ways. On the one hand, there are those who fear it, this reaction is called Tanatophobia. On the other hand, there is the tanatophilia, which unlike the previous one, are those who seduce the idea of dying and are not afraid to cope. The different attitudes they may have before death are heterogeneous and depend on many factors, on which some are little studied.

Developing

Currently, tanatophobia predominates, however, previously death was seen as a natural process of our life cycle, a fact that was assumed, accepted and understood. The person used to die at home in front of all his social networks. Tanatophobia can arise in many moments of life, but the grief process tends to appear at the time of death diagnosis, where fear arises. 

Fear can be manifested in different ways, for example, fear of the process of agony itself (many times patients are more afraid of suffering through the process than the end itself);Fear of losing control of the situation (which arises because patients are increasingly dependent);Fear of what will happen to his when he dies;Fear of loneliness (fear of dying alone);fear of the unknown;fear that the life that has been had no meaning.

According to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, terminal patients pass through five phases: denial, rage, negotiation, depression and acceptance.

Although the normal thing is usually that they take the order in which they are named, this may vary. To talk about the phases we have extracted information from the presentation of Cayetano Fernández Sola and Esther Carmona Samper at the III National Nursing Congress of the Mediterranean Nursing. First, the denial phase. It occurs very common and in most cases it is accompanied by a shock or emotional dull. 

It is described as an emotional damping mechanism that cannot always last, reality must be faced at some point. The next state is anger. When the first phase ends, the question arises: why me and not another person? The feelings of anger and resentment are the most common. It is the phase that presents the most difficulties for relatives and caregivers, since the affected party attempts against them blaming them.

The pact happens to anger. It usually occurs for brief periods of time and tries to create a fiction that allows to see death as a possibility that we are in a position to prevent it from happening. It is common to try to negotiate with divine or supernatural entities to make death not occur in exchange for changing the lifestyle and ‘reforming’. People in the terminal phase usually rely on spiritual or religious issues, this makes religious personnel in multiple hospitals forming part of the therapeutic team. 

After the pact, the depression phase usually appears, it begins when the patient can not deny his illness, seeing that he spends a lot of time in the hospital, with very aggressive treatments … one of the triggers is usually the deteriorated image of the oneself that is aggravatedWith the visit of family and friends. Under these conditions, far from deceiving him and giving false hopes, one must let him express his feelings, good professionals know that this usually gives way to peace and acceptance. Finally, acceptance is experienced, it may not happen, since this occurs when the patient has had enough time to go through the previous phases. You will need to rest and have your loved ones nearby.

conclusion

After treating the phases of the duel, we are going to briefly treat the strategies that we can see, taking into account that the attitudes before death are related to both the subject’s maturity and the experiences lived. Within the coping with death we find two different styles: active or coping and avoidance, in which the problem is fleeing. The people who find it difficult to ask for help at the time of the duel, who belong to the avoidative coping style, end up requiring a higher number of career care than people who have asked for help from the beginning. 

Gender affects the way to face death. The brains of men and women work differently in terms of processing and also because of the different way in which they are treated. The man is linked to the avoidative coping style has a positive point of view because and faces the duel returning to his normal life externalizing more anger than sadness. Instead, women acquired active coping, seeking support implying others in their feelings.

The coping with death becomes increasingly visible in old age, where the elderly feel more vulnerable to death. Some choose to pursue unfulfilled goals, have healthier lifestyles, dedicate time to their family etc., But there are others, more and more frequently, who opt for active euthanasia. Within the group of the elderly it can also be observed that the greater the religiosity, the lower the fear of death. It can be concluded that the elderly see death as a happy transition to another life.

Bibliography

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