The Psychology of Death
Reaction to Death
As previously noted, primitive man's reaction to death was one of fear.
In this enlightened age, man still reacts to death with fear.
Death is still an unknown. No one obviously, has ever died and returned to tell us what death is really like. Man naturally fears what he does not understand and can not control.
The so-called "near-death" experience is still not a death experience. We can never know exactly what death is, so we can never fully understand it.
Therefore we can never stop totally from fearing it.
Much of our response to death is avoidance. Death is not a pleasant topic of conversation. When death must be talked about, it is usually done in academic terms.
Talking about death on a personal level creates discomfort. It is much easier to talk about death in terms of, "People die," rather than in terms of, "Someday I will die."
Within the last 20 years or so, much has been written about death and dying. At times it seemed like everyone who has suffered a loss was writing a book about it.
Each death is unique and therefore each person's experience is unique. That makes much of the material available unusable for another person experiencing a loss through death.
Indeed some of the advice available becomes contradictory simply because each person must deal with their own grief in their own way.
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