The Nakedness Of The Dead Body – The Meaning Of Death To Healthcare Professionals Working With The Dying
Keywords:
Healthcare professionals, palliative care psychiatry, death, phenomenology, death confrontation The question of the meaning of death and of the word ‘death’, the question ‘What is death in general’ or ‘What is the experience of death?’ and the question of knowing what death ‘is’ all remain radically absent as questions. From the outset these questions are assumed to be answered by this anthropologico-historical knowledge as such, at the moment when it institutes itself and gives itself its limits. This assumption takes a form of an ‘it is self-explanatory’: everybody knows what one is talking about when one names death. (Derrida, 1993)Abstract
In the clinical practice of Palliative and Hospice Care, daily practice and organizational demands often conceal the lack of articulated phenomenological understanding of the significance of frequent death confrontation and its meaning to those who work in the field as healthcare professionals. In this article, I would like to offer an exploration on the experience of actual death encounter and the cardinal phenomenon of being present to the nakedness of a dead body, in line with the overarching theme of our past annual conference of the Society of Existential Analysis. By doing so, I will draw from theory and personal experience alike.
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Published
2018-07-01
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Articles
