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This landmark text on the sociology of death and dying draws on contributions from the social and behavioral sciences as well as the humanities, such as history, religion, philosophy, literature, and the arts, to provide thorough coverage of understanding death and the dying process.
The text focuses on both individual and societal attitudes and how they influence both how and when we die and how we live and deal with the knowledge of death and loss. Robert Kastenbaum is a renowned scholar in the field who developed one of the world's first death education courses and introduced the first text for this market.
Synopsis
This landmark text on the sociology of death and dying draws on contributions from the social and behavioral sciences as well as the humanities, such as history, religion, philosophy, literature, and the arts, to provide thorough coverage of understanding death and the dying process.
The text focuses on both individual and societal attitudes and how they influence both how and when we die and how we live and deal with the knowledge of death and loss. Robert Kastenbaum is a renowned scholar in the field who developed one of the world's first death education courses and introduced the first text for this market.
About the Author
Bob Kastenbaum’s exploits as skating messenger apparently qualified him to become editor of two community newspapers, an eccentric career trajectory that somehow led to a graduate scholarship in philosophy and a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Southern California (1959). He was most interested in fields of psychological study that barely existed at the time: lifespan development and aging, time perspective, creativity, and death and dying. Kastenbaum became part of an emerging cadre that overcame the prevailing neglect and resistance to these issues. He worked in varied settings as clinician, researcher, activist, hospital administrator, educator, and author. The innovative programs he introduced into a geriatric hospital and his article, “The Reluctant Therapist” have been credited with preparing the way for increased attention to the needs and potentials of vulnerable elders and terminally ill people. With Dick Kalish, he founded Omega, the first peer-reviewed journal focused on death-related issues. Kastenbaum taught the first regularly-scheduled university course on death and dying and came up with the first textbook (Death, Society, & Human Experience, 1977). He also established the first university-based educational and research center on death and dying (Wayne State University, 1966). His other books include The Psychology of Death (1972, 1990, 2000); Dorian, Graying: Is Youth the Only Thing Worth Having? (1995), and On Our Way. The Final Passage Through Life and Death (2004). He has also served as editor of the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying, (2003) and two previous encyclopedias. In the public sphere he has served as a co-founder of The National Caucus on Black Aging, consultant to the United States Senate Special Subcommittee on Aging, and participant in developing the Veterans Administration’s geriatric research and educational centers, and the landmark National Hospice Demonstration Project. Kastenbaum lives in Tempe, Arizona with Bunny (wife), Angel (The Incredible Leaping Dog), enhanced by Pumpkin and Snowflake in the cat department. Along with his continuing research interests, Kastenbaum has been writing book and verse for musicals and operas. He notes that nobody has died in the two most recently premiered operas (Closing Time; American Gothic, music by Kenneth LaFave), but cannot make any such promises about the next opera.
Table of Contents
*Every chapter ends with Summary, References, and Glossary
Chapter 1: AS WE THINK ABOUT DEATH
- Not Thinking About Death: A Failed Experiment
- Your Self-Inventory Of Attitudes, Beliefs, And Feelings
- Some Answers–And The Questions They Raise
- Man Is Mortal: But What Does That Have To Do With Me?
- Anxiety, Denial, And Acceptance: Three Core Concepts
- Studies And Theories Of Death Anxiety 18 Major Findings From Self-Reports Of Death Anxiety
- Major Findings From Self-Reports of Death Anxiety
- Theoretical Perspectives on Death Anxiety
- Accepting and Denying Death
Chapter 2: WHAT IS DEATH?
- Ideas About The Nature And Meaning Of Death
- Death as Observed, Proclaimed, and Imagined
- Biomedical Approaches to the Definition of Death
- Event Versus State
- What Does Death Mean?
- Interpretations of the Death State
- Conditions that Resemble Death
- Death as a Person
- Conditions that Death Resembles
- The Undead
- Death as an Agent of Personal, Political, and Social Change
Chapter 3: THE DEATH SYSTEM
- A WORLD WITHOUT DEATH
- BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DEATH SYSTEM
- COMPONENTS OF THE DEATH SYSTEM
- Functions of the Death System
- Tsunami, Cyclone, Earthquake, and Hurricane Katrina–Challenges to the Death System
- Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
- How Our Death System Has Been Changing–And the “Deathniks” Who are Making a Difference
Chapter 4: DYING
- The Moment of Death: Is It Vanishing?
- What is Dying, and When Does it Begin?
- Trajectories of Dying: From Beginning to End
- Guarded Feelings, Subtle Communications
- Individuality and Universality in the Experience of Dying
- Theoretical Models of the Dying Process
Chapter 5: Hospice and Palliative Care
- Hospice: a New Flowering from Ancient Roots
- Standards of Care for the Terminally Ill
- The Hospice in Action
- Relief of Pain and Suffering
- Hospice Access, Decision Making, and Challenges
- Dame Cicely Saunder’s Reflections on Hospice
Chapter 6: End-0f-Life Issues and Decisions
- From Description to Decision Making
- Who Should Participate in End-Of-Life Decisions
- The Living Will and its Impact
- Right-To-Die Decisions that We Can Make
- A Right Not to Die? The Cryonics Alternative
- Organ Donation
- Funeral-Related Decisions
Chapter 7: Suicide
- What Do the Statistics Tell Us?
- Four Problem Areas
- Some Cultural Meanings of Suicide
- A Powerful Sociological Theory of Suicide
- Some Individual Meanings of Suicide
- Facts and Myths about Suicide
- Suicide Prevention
Chapter 8: Violent Death: Murder, Terrorism, Genocide, Disaster, and Accident
- Murder
- Terrorism
- Accident and Disaster
Chapter 9: Euthanasia, Assisted Death, Abortion, and the Right to Die
- “I Swear By Apollo the Physician”: What Happened to the Hippocratic Oath?
- Our Changing Attitudes Toward a Right to Die
- The Right-To-Die Dilemma: Case Examples
- Terri Schiavo: Who Decides?
- Dr. Kevorkian and the Assisted-Suicide Movement
- Assisted Death in the United States
- Induced Abortion
Chapter 10: Death in the World of Childhood
- Respecting the Child’s Concern and Curiosity
- Adult Assumptions About Children and Death
- Children Do Think About Death
- Concepts and Fears: Developing Through Experience
- How Do Children Cope with Bereavement?
- The Dying Child
- Sharing the Child’s Death Concerns: A Few Guidelines
- The “Right” to Decide: Should the Child’s Voice Be Heard?
Chapter 11: Bereavement, Grief and Mourning
- Some Responses to Loss
- Defining Our Terms: Bereavement, Grief, Mourning
- What Kind of Grief?
- Theories of Greif
- How Do People Recover from Grief?
- Bereavement in Later Life
- Are Bereaved People At Higher Risk for Death?
- How Well Do We Support the Bereaved?
- Meaningful Help for Bereaved People
- Widows in Third World Nations
- On the Future of Grieving and Mourning
Chapter 12: The Funeral Process
- A Sampler of Responses to the Dead
- What Do Funerals Mean to Us?
- From Dead Body to Living Memory: A Process Approach
- Making Death “Legal”
- What Does the Funeral Process Accomplish?
- Memories of Our People: Cemeteries in the United States
- The Place of the Dead in Society: Yesterday and Today
- The Funeral Director’s Perspective
- Improving the Funeral Process
- Spontaneous Memorialization in Response to Violent Death
- Integrity and Abuse in the Funeral and Memorial Process
Chapter 13: Do We Survive Death?
- Concept of Survival in Historic Perspective
- Heavens and Hells
- The Desert Religions and Their One God
- What Other People Believe Today
- Can Survival Be Proved?
- When Spiritism Was in Flower
- Near-Death Experiences: Evidence for Survival?
- Should We Survive Death?
- But What Kind of Survival?
- Assisted and Symbolic Survival
- The Suicide-Survival Connection
Chapter 14: How Can We Help?
- “Compassionate Fatigue”: Burnout and the Healthcare Provider
- Death Educators and Counselors: The “Border Patrol”
- Death Education in Historical Perspective
- Death Education and Counseling: The Current Scene
- Counseling and The Counselors
- How We All Can Help
Chapter 15: Good Life, Good Death?
- Three Paths to Death
- A Father Dies: A Mission Begins
- A Shift in the Meaning of Life and Death
- Utopia: A Better Death in a Better Place?
- “The Good Death”: Fantasy or Reality?
- Extinction: Death of Life or Death of Death?
- From Good Life to Good Death: A Personal Statement