The Inner Life of the Dying Person

End-of-Life Care: A Series

by Allan Kellehear

This unique book recounts the experience of facing one's death solely from the dying person's point of view rather than from the perspective of caregivers, survivors, or rescuers. Such unmediated access challenges assumptions about the emotional and spiritual dimensions of dying, showing readers that―along with suffering, loss, anger, sadness, and fear―we can also feel courage, love, hope, reminiscence, transcendence, transformation, and even happiness as we die.

A work that is at once psychological, sociological, and philosophical, this book brings together testimonies of those dying from terminal illness, old age, sudden injury or trauma, acts of war, and the consequences of natural disasters and terrorism. It also includes statements from individuals who are on death row, in death camps, or planning suicide. Each form of dying addressed highlights an important set of emotions and narratives that often eclipses stereotypical renderings of dying and reflects the numerous contexts in which this journey can occur outside of hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices. Chapters focus on common emotional themes linked to dying, expanding and challenging them through first-person accounts and analyses of relevant academic and clinical literature in psycho-oncology, palliative care, gerontology, military history, anthropology, sociology, cultural and religious studies, poetry, and fiction. The result is an all-encompassing investigation into an experience that will eventually include us all and is more surprising and profound than anyone can imagine.

Genres: Nonfiction, Death, Philosophy

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 3, 2014

Reviews

[Stu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed, and life-affirming, look at the processes of dying in modern culture. Notably, this account chooses to explicitly focus on the phenomenology of the dying person, rather than on the medical profession surrounding death, the caregiver experience, or the social ramifications (although it touches on these in relation to the dying individual).

Separated into various broad emotional sections, it expands upon the famous Kubler-Ross framework, and demonstrates the sheer variety of psychological responses to death and dying. It is also refreshingly wide in terms of references - delving into medical science, neurology, psychoanalysis, religion, social science, art, literature, and personal accounts - and in its cross-cultural awareness.

Kellehear also refuses to be bound by orthodoxy, and allows spiritual/religious insights to sit alongside statistical research - essentially permitting the unknowns to exist, but without trying to draw metaphysical conclusions.

He is also adept at showing the many positives experienced by a surprisingly high number of dying individuals, including reconnection with others, greater appreciation of life, resolution of conflict, deep changes to selfhood, and a tranquility of acceptance. We too often view death through a medical lens - almost as a sad but necessary succession of symptom management - but he reminds us that profound psychological insights and developments can, and frequently do, occur, even in the final stages of life.

[Sam Shingleton · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a brilliance to the book, but I had a good bit difficulty staying involved.