Approaching Death

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Abstract
Tor-Bjørn Hägglund is assistant professor of psychotherapy and medical psychology at the University of Oulu. He is also training psychoanalyst with the Finnish Psychoanalytic Society. He has studied the death process by psychoanalytical observation of the dying patients during a period of time prior to death. His book “Dying” on this subject was published by the International University Press in 1978. He describes the five phases of mourning work in the dying process from the clinical viewpoint in the current article, and gives som advice of how to face the dying patient in his last moments. The sorrow associated with death has been met with in various ways. In religious rites mourning work has been supported by referring to a superhuman force, in folk tradition fellow-men have been trusted to give support, and in contemporary medical psychology the point of focus has been the development of treating facilities in the direction of progressive mourning work. The consecutive phases of mourning work are: the shock caused by threatening loss; the grief reaction after loss; the phase of loneliness and emptiness; reparative adaptation to changed circumstances; and creativity as a continuation of mourning work. Mourning work may be arrested at any one of these phases resulting in anxiety. The psychotherapeutic attitude toward the dying person advances normal mourning work, and therefore lessens the accompanying anxiety and fear.

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