Death Is Nothing at All: On Contemplating Non-Existence. A Relational Psychoanalytic Engagement of the Fear of Death

Frommer, Martin Stephen

doi:10.1080/10481885.2016.1190599

Cited by 19 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…If people attend the death, they may not be the ones the dying person would prefer. Dying alone is a fear that many people hold ( Frommer, 2016 ) and thus they prefer to be accompanied at their death, even if it is only to be sung into their next life or that great vast void which they may imagine will be the next step. Family and friends who share significant relationships, if they speak of death at all, may express that one of their worst fears would be if a loved one died alone ( Larrson, Ramgard, & Bolmsjo, 2017 ).…”

Section: Dying Alone and Lonely Dyingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dying alone and lonely dying: Media discourse and pandemic conditions

Nelson-Becker

Chapot

2020

Journal of Aging Studies

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Background and objectives This paper explores current concerns and practice related to older people dying alone in Intensive Care Units, care homes, and at home through media discussions during the Covid-19 pandemic and before. It addresses the historically-situated concept of a good death and a bad death and suggests why dying alone, whether completely alone or without significant others physically present, may be considered a bad death. Methods As evidence for collective fears about dying alone, we explored the treatment of these deaths in media using headline examples from the US New York Times and the English Guardian newspaper from the 19th century through Sept. 2020. Results A search of the New York Times located 39 articles with either lonely dying or lonely death in the headline. The Guardian had 25 articles with use of the term, but unlike the New York Times, no obituaries were included. Although the deaths profiled were deemed unusual, deaths by suicide were only minimally classed as dying alone. The condition of dying alone is represented as a stigmatised death. Themes addressed: 1) dying alone is a nonnormative event; 2) this death matters; and 3) where people die alone, societies should honour the death and learn from it. Discussion and implications Contemporary dying involves conditions for which we are unprepared as a society. We seldom address our civic obligations to each other. Few people have discussed their wishes about their preferences in dying and whether and how they want to be accompanied at their death, if possible. This is an invisible constraint of modern healthcare. Because of limited discussions and preparation, these deaths may lead to disenfranchised grief for the mourners. Cultural and societal responses to lonely dying are important in easing the emotional burden of dying alone, helping individuals prepare for this possibility and better integrating death with the life course. Recommendations include inclusion of accompaniment/nonaccompaniment at death as part of advance care planning and mitigation if this condition occurs. It is essential for individuals to find their own still point of acceptance within competing societal narratives of privileging the self in dying alone and the value of social connection.

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Section: Dying Alone and Lonely Dyingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dying alone and lonely dying: Media discourse and pandemic conditions

Nelson-Becker

Chapot

2020

Journal of Aging Studies

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“…An article by Martin Frommer ( 2016 ) inspired this essay. He said that Despite profound changes that have taken place in psychoanalytic theory and practice over the last several decades, the human awareness of mortality continues to be treated as if it were not a defining psychic issue (p. 374).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In pointing out how Freud ( 1915c ) thought of death as challenging to represent psychically, and that he essentially gave death no psychic significance whatsoever to death, Martin Frommer ( 2016 ) laments this current absence of death’s psychic importance in psychoanalytic therapy and theory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Emerging out of this developing literature is the critique that in the past death anxiety was viewed not so much about death per se , as it was about other anxieties related to early or infantile fear of abandonment and separation, as well as early anxieties of castration and the unthinkable terror of annihilation (Piven, 2003 ). The actual fear of death, notes Frommer ( 2016 ), is thereby lodged within a theoretical framework that robs it of its legitimacy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is, however, not the same as death anxiety. The experience of the self dissolving, which may be understood as an imminent psychic death, is, Frommer ( 2016 ) asserts, distinctly different from the total absence of experience – the nothingness of death. Annihilation anxiety is not about the fear of non-existence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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I am surrounded by death: death as a defining psychic issue within a relational psychoanalytic engagement and the impact of the therapist’s relationship with death

Knight

2019

ResPsy

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Taking inspiration from Frommer, this paper is part of a shift towards incorporating death as a defining psychic issue. With a sense that I am surrounded by death, the author presents two brief vignettes of clinical cases to illustrate the impact of the therapist’s relationship with death on the therapeutic process. Each case shows a different level of engagement with the client when the focus is on death-talk, and reflects, on the one hand, the therapist’s ability and readiness to work with death as an object of analysis, and on the other hand, the therapist’s lack of processing of experiences of death of others, and the resultant failure to successfully work with death in analysis. The one case is arguably more successful therapeutically than the other, and highlights some issues that come into play in the light of the therapist’s relationship with death. These issues are: i) the importance of the therapist’s development with regards to processing experiences of death and dying cannot be underestimated when working with death as an object of scrutiny; ii) empathy remains core to the process and getting in touch with how the client experiences the death of the other. Without recognition, however, no (grief) work can begin. The therapist needs to psychologically recognise the other to be able to connect to, and empathize with, the clients process; iii) the impact of the death of the other often transforms into the work of the impact of the death of self; iv) if clients have a sense that the therapist knows what they are speaking about because the therapist has done some of the work of making meaning of death, clients may feel more confident in working with death as an object of analysis.

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Die Bewältigung des Todes in der psychischen Entwicklung

Grieser

2019

Forum Psychoanal

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Death Is Nothing at All: On Contemplating Non-Existence. A Relational Psychoanalytic Engagement of the Fear of Death

Cited by 19 publications

References 14 publications

Dying alone and lonely dying: Media discourse and pandemic conditions

Dying alone and lonely dying: Media discourse and pandemic conditions

I am surrounded by death: death as a defining psychic issue within a relational psychoanalytic engagement and the impact of the therapist’s relationship with death

Die Bewältigung des Todes in der psychischen Entwicklung

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