Unit 7 Section 2Exercise 5Denial of death
Christine Middlebrook, in her memoir, Seeing the Crab, writes: “The Ego’s hold on the taboo that forbids us to speak of death, I have learned, is its strongest hold, stronger than its censure of those other unmentionables: sex, money, incest, voting Democratic in the 1990’s. Almost automatic words come out of our mouths to protect us from the reality of death when someone says she is dying.
“No you aren’t,” we protest.
“Don’t talk that way!”
“Just think how lucky you are to_______.” Fill in the blank—have a family, live near a good hospital, have lived thus far….Then there is, ‘You never know.’ I have struggled to find a response to ‘you never know.’ All I have come up with is ‘but, I do know…’”
Understanding the powerful social and psychological taboo that leads to the denial of death helps understand why people so often ‘say the wrong thing.’ The author makes clear how this denial is hurtful to her, as a denial of her lived experience. Ultimately, she perceives that the speakers are more interested in protecting themselves from discomfort, than tuning into her pain. One could argue that there are social costs as well in the denial of death. What societal damage do you speculate does this denial of death lead to? Read the following summary of a newspaper article, “Fairfax code keeps death at a distance.”
The author of this article the absence of funeral homes in Reston, Virginia, states that the neighborhood has found the subject of funeral homes a ‘touchy subject.’
“You can be born, attend school, grow up and take a job in Reston, just as the creators of the acclaimed planned suburb envisioned,” he writes. “You just can’t stay there forever. There are no funeral homes or cemeteries. The dead have to commute.” Whoriskey quotes a funeral home owner as saying. “..there are those who just absolutely don’t care to think or talk about it.’ He quotes another funeral home owner as saying, “No one wants to face death every day on the way home.”
Think about the relationship between urban planning, economies and values and attitudes. “As attitudes toward death have changed over the years, so has the death business. In many older American towns and cities, the dead were given a prominent place: The cemetery was tight next to the church at the center of the community. Christ Church Cemetery in Alexandria is an example. But beginning in the 19 th century, health codes, zoning and other forces, relegated the death industry to less prominent locations, pushing most cemeteries to the metropolitan fringe…” Peter Whoriskey “Fairfax code keeps death at a distance”
As the vignette introducing this section indicates, many patients do not want to know about their impending deaths. Others want to know everything. Review the vignette at the very beginning of this section and answer the following.
Study questions
1. How would you determine whether a patient is in denial about their medical condition?
2. Do you think the doctor in the vignette was wrong to tell the patient she’d be all right? |
