#kubler-ross

[mega2wheellife]

[sowingseedsandshootinghoops]

Death in Modern Society

Note on the text: I used Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, the Clergy, and Their Own Families as published by Schreiber in 2019.

This is the book where Dr Ross famously came up with the “Five Stages of Grief”. But honestly what interested me more than that were her thoughts on how modern society, especially in the West, confront the reality of death. 

Dr Ross starts off her book by telling us about her experiences growing up on a farm in Switzerland. Specifically she talks about a time when, as a young girl, she was told that a beloved neighbor was dying. Instead of having people tiptoeing around the subject, treating it as if it were something taboo, she recalls the community speaking about what was happening openly and honestly, even among children. Death was seen as just another part of life, and therefore not as something that needed to be shoved aside and ignored. Not even when it came to children. In fact, in her view, it was helpful for her and her friends to be a part of those conversations because it made them feel like they were part of the community and helped them learn how to handle their grief. After all, they knew that something was going on, and would have known at least that much even if no one explained it to them. That’s what a lot of people forget: Children always know what is happening around them. What they are missing is the why. Death is an essential part of life that all of us, from the youngest child to the eldest adult, must learn to cope with because we will all encounter it in some way someday.

Now Switzerland at that time, in her own words, was a country where “science [was] not so advanced, where modern technology [had] just started to find [its] way into modern medicine, and where people [lived, essentially,] as they did in that [same] country a half century earlier” (5). So when she eventually left her small farm and joined the larger world, especially in the USA, it was something of a shock. Technology had allowed people to make great advancements, especially when it came to the field of medicine. In fact, as she came to realize, medicine is so good now, especially in bigger more metropolitan cities, that people are able to cure diseases now that were once thought incurable. The result of this is that death is a far less prevalent occurrence now, especially in First World countries, than it was before. One would assume that as a result of this that we are more equipped now, especially in the highly industrialized West, to more effectively “prepare ourselves and our families for [the] inevitable” event that is death (7). But instead she found the opposite to be true: “The more [advancements] we make in science, the more we seem to fear and deny the reality of death” (7). 

The reason for that, in her opinion, is that until we as a species became more technologically advanced, especially when it came to medicine, death was an unavoidable reality. Children died by the thousands and plagues would routinely wipe out whole villages. Therefore death people couldn’t as easily avoid the topic of death. It wasn’t something that happened in some far off hospital room like it does now- it was happening on your front door. 

This is in contrast to what happens now, at least in most First World countries. Now medicine has become so effective that death is no longer a part of everyone’s daily reality. More than that, it has been banished to the outskirts of society’s mind like an invader who must be driven away from the gates. In Dr Ross’ opinion, people generally avoid talking about death now because “dying has become more gruesome in many ways, namely more mechanical, lonely, and dehumanized” (7). Many people are, for example, forced to die somewhere outside of their home and familiar surroundings, something that would almost never have happened in past ages where most people would wind up dying in their own beds. Now sick people are carted off into hospital rooms and old people are pushed into retirement facilities. They die in unfamiliar environments surrounded by unfamiliar faces. The result of all this is that death has become very taboo. Death has been made to feel like some unseen all-powerful force that is there to destroy your life before it even takes it. This makes it something which people feel must be avoided at all costs, and never even talked about. Death is no longer recognized as something that is integral part of life- as something which human beings must learn to embrace because it is the natural end which everyone must endure. No one lives forever. Now that doesn’t mean that death isn’t scary, what it does mean is that people have to learn how to live with it and how to cope with it. Which is to say, among many other things, that they have to learn how to grieve. Which is where her book comes in. 

Death is unavoidable and if I’ve learned anything in my last 34 years it is that not talking about something does not make it go away. We cannot simply stop thinking about death and pretend that it no longer exists. In fact I would say that a lot of our destructive instincts are fostered by the fact that we don’t really respect the power of death. At least not before it is too late. It is not until our loved one dies or something like a school shooting happens that many of us are forced to confront the reality of death and that is a problem. Because death is a part of life, and to ignore that is to ignore something that is fundamental to our nature.

[lunacelebrateslife]

[thehopefulquotes]

Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

[quotefeeling]

Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

[thoughtkick]

Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

[entheognosis]

[resqectable]

Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

[surqrised]

Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

[stay-close]

Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

[graciehart]

i know this is very specific to me being a therapist but god I wish the stages of grief weren’t written into the album storyline this way 😭😭 it’s not her fault people think they’re sequential of course but just thinking about how things get perpetuated in media and the massive influence she has (“in my ___ era” is just… so normal now?) and I can already see the five stages becoming some sort of meme… miss swift I don’t need my job to be any harder

[perfectquote]

Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

[thehopefulquotes]

Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

[notasfilosoficas]

“En el interior de cada uno de nosotros hay una capacidad inimaginable para la bondad, para dar sin buscar recompensa, para escuchar sin hacer juicios, para amar sin condiciones”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Fue una psiquiatra y escritora suizo-estadounidense, y una de las mayores expertas mundiales en la muerte, personas moribundas y cuidados paliativos.

Nació en Zúrich Suiza en julio de 1926, se licenció en medicina en la Universidad de Zurich en el año de 1958, se mudó a la ciudad de Nueva York en donde continuó con sus investigaciones. En 1963, se graduó como psiquiatra en la universidad de Colorado y a lo largo de su carrera recibió múltiples doctorados honoríficos.

Su interés por la muerte comenzó en su época de estudiante, cuando visitó algunos campos de exterminio nazi tras la guerra. Durante ese tiempo, se sorprendió al ver que las paredes de los barrancones estaban llenos de dibujos de mariposas, las cuales convirtió en un símbolo de renacimiento hacia un estado superior.

Empezó como residente con pacientes con enfermedades mentales y posteriormente con enfermos terminales.

Fue muy criticada en un inicio así que empezó a impartir seminarios en los que participaban enfermos terminales que hablaban en público acerca de su situación. Ya para 1968, estos seminarios se convirtieron en cursos acreditados, y hoy en dia, los estudios sobre la muerte y el morir forman parte de la formación de estudiantes de medicina en muchos países.

Su libro, “Sobre la muerte y los moribundos” publicado en 1969 expone su conocido método Kubler-Ross por primera vez, y en este y otros doce libros, sentó las bases de los modernos cuidados paliativos, cuyo objetivo es que el enfermo afronte la muerte con serenidad y hasta con alegría.

Elizabeth Kubler enfocó su investigación en cinco etapas de duelo, (la negación, la ira, la negociación, la depresión y finalmente la aceptación) y se utilizaron para afrontar situaciones difíciles como mecanismo de defensa ante una perdida, no solo la muerte, sino eventualidades tales como la pérdida de un empleo, un divorcio o la partida de un ser querido.

En 1975 Elizabeth publicó entrevistas y testimonios de personas que habían vivido experiencias cercanas a la muerte en donde la gente narraba la experiencia de la muerte como una maravillosa forma de reencuentro con personas amadas y su trabajo sobre el mas allá, supuso un alejamiento de colegas médicos que habían valorado su trabajo, ya que a pesar de esto, ella no tenía dudas acerca de la supervivencia del alma.

En 1995 Elizabeth sufrió varios ataques de apoplejía y quedó paralizada del lado izquierdo. En una entrevista de 2002 decía que estaba preparada para morir, falleciendo finalmente en agosto de 2004. 

Fuentes: Wikipedia y Libro “La rueda de la vida”

[kamala-laxman]

Should you shield the valleys from the windstorms, you would never see the beauty of their canyons.” Elisabeth Kubler Ross

[coffinup]

SOMEONE AT WORK SAID KEEBLER-ROSS INSTEAD OF KUBLER-ROSS AND IM JUST..

The five stages of cookie

The fudge stages of grief

The five cookies of grief