Stages of Dying
I saw this once in “dr. house” and again in my psychology lecture. This theory was formed by Elizebeth Kubler-Ross in 1969 when she treated patients with terminal diseases. She discovered 5 normal stages gone through by the patient after knowing about his/her diagnosis about his/her diseases and that he’s gonna die.
1) DENIAL — the patient denies his medical diagnosis. He tend to get a several specialist’s opinion before finally knowing that he’s going to die.
2) ANGER—- the person feel angry at his fate. he blames God and people around him for what happens. He doesn’t want help from other people. He is angry with people around him because they are healthy and he’s going to die. This stage can last for a long time or it might not happen. But a psychologist or his families should talk him out of this stage so that he won’t die in anger…that would be very sad…
3) BARGAINING— he bargains with God to let him live. He might make all sort of promise like going to do lots of charity, become vegetarian , not arguing with his wife, going to be obedient to parents…etc.
4) DEPRESSION— he suffer at the thought of dying . after knowing that bargaining doesn’t work , he goes into depression. He tends to become suicidal. He tends to think that he should at least have control of his death rather than waiting for the time to come. A psychologist can help in this case to bring the person to the next stage.
5) ACCEPTANCE— he accepts his impending and unavoidable death. He knows that he does not have much time left and would do whatever is left to do before he dies. Chinese has a saying that when a person is dying, he would be very kind and he would always speak the truth.
All phobias is built based on the conditional reflex . eg. Claustrophobia. A person might have bad experience with elevator before that he’s afraid of closed space. And all phobias is finally directed to thanatophobia—fear of death. Everybody is afraid to die (maybe almost everybody). Maybe because they fear of the uncertainty of what is going to happen after that because no one really knows. It’s rather an anxiety rather than fear( anxiety= afraid of sth yet to happen, fear = afraid of definite things). In this case, religious can help.
I fall sick again. Dunno why. But got flu, fever and sore throat. U know when you are sick and go out in Russia under -10 , every breath is like breathing POISON….so painful and suffering…..hope I’ll get well soon…
