Psychological growth in a dying person

An intimate confrontation with death, in addition to triggering deep biologically rooted anxiety related to the self-preservation instinct, represents a painful reminder of the ultimate limitations of man's efforts at control and mastery of his environment and his unconscious wish to be eternal. This shattering encounter constitutes an agonizing existential crisis for the individual who realizes that no matter what he does in his life he cannot escape the inevitable and will have to leave the world bereft of everything that he has accumulated, achieved, and become emotionally attached to. In this respect the process of dying resembles the process of birth. Exposure to the phenomenon of death tends to open up spiritual and religious dimensions that appear to be an intrinsic part of the human personality and are independent of his cultural and religious background.

Traditional practices for assisting the dying existed and exist in most civilizations. Life may be considered as an education in dying, and reminders of mortality were common in traditional victory and life-celebrating festivals. In modern Western society, a therapist working with healthy individuals may help to stimulate psychological growth by facilitating a confrontation for the individual with his fear of death in a supportive, educational, psychotherapeutic frame of reference.

Other forms of therapy may assist individuals in the process of dying to achieve psychological growth and altered states of consciousness. The general taboo and dread associated with even the idea of death in Western society is partly due to the lonely and depersonalized experience which modern medicine and surgery have made of death and of keeping people alive. This may be overcome by a renewed faith in interpersonal relationships and help in experiencing death through the emotional effects it has on the dying person and those closest to him. The dying individual is given the opportunity to face and deal with his mortality in a way that is worthy of his human dignity and which is therefore of potential value both to him and to his family. By transcending individual existence and interacting with others, and by accepting the changes which are occurring and the unknown future, death can become the culmination of life and the means of knowing the self. When mystical states of consciousness occur among the dying, they may impart a sense of new and profound insight into the meaning of life and a deeper sensitivity to values. They may provide the individual with an increased awareness of the significance of his existence and an enriched appreciation for the whole of creation.

Associated with the notion of death as an opportunity for psychological growth is the concept of death itself as an altered state of consciousness. Related to this is the belief in survival after death and the belief in reincarnation (separately described). In Christianity, for example, death is not simply the transition from one form of existence to another similar form but the transition from the temporal and incomplete to the eternal and complete. The whole of creation is seen as growing towards a definitive state through incarnate spiritual persons and their death, this growth from within continuing until the external intervention of God in the Day of Judgement.