Being With a Dying, Nonreligious Person.
Academic Article
Overview
abstract
Death is a unique and dramatic event. The desire to imagine life as endless may be hard-wired, preserved through evolution because it promotes behaviors that protect the organism. Beliefs in an afterlife may be an extension of our theory-of-mind mental functions, our innate tendency to attribute consciousness to others, projected onto a self that persists after death. Afterlife beliefs also reflect the intuitive teleological thinking of childhood that is automatic and suppressed but not erased in adulthood. Religions respond to this need by offering narratives of survival after death. By contrast, most nonreligious people hold a physicalist worldview in which the person dies with the body, leaving them the task to construct a personal, coherent account of their own mortality. Existentialists view death as a boundary that exposes the fragility of human life. This awareness permeates every aspect of life, sustaining a tension between the longing for transcendence and the reality of finitude. A clinical vignette illustrates the need to listen attentively and try to understand the nonreligious dying patient. The person in the vignette, fully aware of her prognosis, avoided direct discussion of death. Despite her expertise in palliative care, she pursued treatments that prolonged both life and suffering. In her final days, she focused on easing the emotional turmoil her dying caused to loved ones, seeking continuity in her relationships. Facing mortality allows for authentic engagement with existence, a confrontation that deepens life's meaning precisely because it is finite.
