I'm not a robot

CAPTCHA

Privacy - Terms

reCAPTCHA v4
Link



















Original text

In this article, I would like to present my thoughts on the experience of overcoming the fear of death, gained from working in an oncology care center, since the problem of attitude towards death and one’s own dying is a very important existential challenge. This topic is of particular importance for those who are faced with a difficult situation in their lives, have experienced or are experiencing a real threat to their existence or the existence of loved ones. In addition, this is an important area of ​​elaboration for specialists working with requests, where the eternal, mysterious and frightening emerges: dying and death. For example, for psychologists working in hospitals, hospices, oncology and hematology dispensaries and departments, doctors, paramedics, and nurses. This group also includes relatives of people undergoing appropriate examination and treatment. For any person who is faced with a threat to life, working through the topic of death allows him to find meaning in the period of life that is given to him. This allows him not only to exist during this period, but to actually LIVE in it, filling this time with meaning. One of my clients, being in the terminal stage of cancer, preparing for the transition to another form of existence, realized that her attitude towards death, towards her changing body can teach her child a very important lesson. A lesson that her child will carry throughout his life. Neither she nor I knew how long she had left. But that was no longer important. And the important thing was that she used her time, filling this time with life and something very important and deep. And her transition was calm and solemn, despite the difficulties natural to the state of her physical body. Why is this topic so important, for example, for a doctor or psychologist? The fact is that, without having worked through the topic of death and our attitude towards it, in the process of providing assistance we will face our fears and aggravate them in ourselves and our clients. Or try to treat your fears, as they say, “about the client,” which is unprofessional and unethical. Simply put, is it possible to help a person in need process the fear of death when a psychologist or doctor himself is afraid of it? The answer is obvious. I will say more, such work with the fear of death will be useful for any healthy person. Thanks to this work, a person begins to live more joyfully and meaningfully. It's no secret that fear of death leads to fear of life. By protecting ourselves from everything related to death, or trying to protect ourselves as much as possible, we can protect ourselves so much from life itself that we do not allow it to manifest itself in all its fullness. Again, we often do not know how to behave with a dying relative, and our behavior sometimes causes additional trauma to him. We either rape him with our pity, behind which fear is hidden, or we strive to have as little contact with him as possible, denying him the necessary support, forgiveness and peace. How can you work through the fear of death? I know two ways. The first method is to use special psychotechniques, for example, taken from transpersonal psychology: holotropic breathing by S. Grof, regressive hypnosis in the classical, Ericksonian or shamanic variation. What does this give? Using these techniques, we can “remember” the moment when we were expelled from our mother’s womb. For the fetus, this was the moment of awareness of the end of the current existence. So, according to transpersonalists, then the matrix of fear of death is imprinted. After all, for the fetus it was an expectation of death. And, having experienced this feeling again, we understand that it is exactly the same as the current fear of death. This means that it becomes possible either to relieve the tension of this feeling, or to achieve the realization that we will be born into some other reality - a reality beyond the existing one. Actually, this is exactly what is described in almost all religions. However, this method may have a number of health contraindications. And besides,.