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Although many books are written about bereavement, very few are written about the fear of one's own death and most of these focus chiefly on terminal illness. In contrast, this book looks at the ways in which the fear of death operates on a back burner throughout our lives and how it influences the choices we make and the paths that we follow in life. The author presents a `moral hierarchy' of behavior used in coping with the fear of death and dying.
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CHOICES FOR LIVING COPING WITH FEAR OF DYING PATH IN PSYCHOLOGY Published in Cooperation with Publications for the Advancement of Theory and History in Psychology (PATH) Series Editors: David Bakan, York University John M. Broughton, Teachers College, Columbia University Robert W. Rieber, John Jay College, CUNY, and Columbia University Howard Gruber, University of Geneva CHOICES FOR LIVING: Coping with Fear of Dying Thomas S. Langner COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND GENETIC EPISTEMOLOGY: A Case Study of Understanding David Leiser and Christiane Gillièron A CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY: Interpretation of the Personal World Edmund V. Sullivan CRITICAL THEORIES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT Edited by John M. Broughton CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY AND QUALITATIVE METHODOLOGY: Theoretical and Empirical Considerations Carl Ratner DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACHES TO THE SELF Edited by Benjamin Lee and Gil G. Noam HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY: Concepts and Criticisms Edited by Joseph R. Royce and Leendert P. Mos MANUFACTURING SOCIAL DISTRESS: Psychopathy in Everyday Life Robert W. Rieber THE MASS PSYCHOLOGY OF ETHNONATIONALISM Dusan Kecmanovic THE PROCESS APPROACH TO PERSONALITY: Perceptgeneses and Kindred Approaches in Focus Gudmund J. W. Smith PSYCHOSOCIAL THEORIES OF THE SELF Edited by Benjamin Lee SELF AND IDENTITY IN MODERN PSYCHOLOGY AND INDIAN THOUGHT Anand C. Paranjpe THEORETICAL PSYCHOLOGY: The Meeting of East and West Anand C. Paranjpe WILHELM WUNDT IN HISTORY: The Making of a Scientific Psychology Edited by Robert W. Rieber and David K. Robinson CHOICES FOR LIVING COPING WITH FEAR OF DYING THOMAS S. LANGNER, PH.D. Retired, Formerly School of Public Health and Department of Psychiatry Columbia University New York, New York KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS NEW YORK, BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW eBook ISBN: Print ISBN: 0-306-47462-X 0-306-46607-4 ©2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow Print ©2002 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers New York All rights reserved No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher Created in the United States of America Visit Kluwer Online at: and Kluwer's eBookstore at: http://kluweronline.com http://ebooks.kluweronline.com P REFACE On January 1, 1994, I turned 70 and it suddenly dawned on me that I would not be around forever. I started to reread Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer prize-winning book The Denial of Death. I was struck by the fact that Becker focused on killing or wielding power over others as a major mode of coping with the fear of death. Killing others created the illusion of immortality, since the killer had the power of life and death over others. This book was shortly followed by Escape from Evil, which dealt further with “man’s need to feel powerful and to banish death.” The more I thought about it, the more I felt I should write about the whole gamut of ways in which people cope with the fear of death and dying. These rage from the most positive coping modes such as Creativity, Love, Humor, Intellectualization, and Procreation, to the most negative coping modes (those most destructive of the self and others) such as Counterphobic Behavior, Gambling, Dissociation, Repression/Denial, Suicide, Projection, and Killing. So