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Albany, NY – In today's Academic Minute, Dr. Donna Reittinger of the College of Saint Rose explains how the language we use about death can induce needless stress.
Donna Reittinger is a professor of psychology at The College of Saint Rose where she teaches courses in developmental psychology. Her research interests include pediatric palliative care and family issues during the terminal illness of a child. She has also published on the issues of death, dying, and bereavement.
Dr. Donna Reittinger - The Psychology of Death
Do you read the obituary in your local paper? I do, and I've made an interesting observation over the last several years. Many people who die, primarily from illnesses such as cancer, Alzheimer's Disease, and other chronic conditions, do so after fighting battles--short battles, long battles, heroic battles, and valiant battles--but, nonetheless, they've lost a battle.
Parenthetically, medical professionals sometimes refer to such individuals as having "failed" treatment. Technically, this makes a person who is dying a loser or a failure when what they are really doing is experiencing a process that is a normal, natural, and universal part of the life cycle of every living thing.
The words we use to describe death influence how we think about it, feel about it, and even how we see ourselves with respect to it. Perhaps the "battle analogy" is useful and even necessary when a person has a realistic hope of surviving his or her condition; but for all the people who don't, it becomes hurtful and makes the experience of dying psychologically difficult.
The literature in this area tells us that when people who are dying can be helped to see themselves as participating in a normal and natural process, which death is, the last days of living can be a little easier than if they continue, even on some primitive level, to see themselves as losing a battle or failing treatment. Perhaps it's time for us, as a society, to be mindful of the words we use to discuss death and dying because it is a natural and normal process through which we all must, without exception, pass.