Others defy death with gallows humor and death-taunting songs, or by watching horror films with friends. Many adolescents today may respond to death anxiety by becoming masters and dispensers of death in their second life in violent video games. Then, during adolescence, death anxiety erupts in force: teenagers often become preoccupied with death a few consider suicide. The fear of death ordinarily goes underground from about six to puberty, the same years Freud designated as the period of latent sexuality. Sometimes adults attempt to find soothing words, or transfer the whole matter into the distant future, or soothe children’s anxiety with death-denying tales of resurrection, eternal life, heaven, and reunion. If they openly express their anxiety, their parents become noticeably uncomfortable and, of course, rush to offer comfort. Children may simply observe, wonder, and, following their parents’ example, remain silent. Children at an early age cannot help but note the glimmerings of mortality surrounding them-dead leaves, insects and pets, disappearing grandparents, grieving parents, endless acres of cemetery tombstones. My personal experience and clinical work have taught me that anxiety about dying waxes and wanes throughout the life cycle. in the discussion that follows, I often refer to these valuable ideas. To alleviate the fear of death, he developed several powerful thought experiments that have helped me personally face death anxiety and offer the tools I use to help my patients. And the root cause of misery? Epicurus believed it to be our omnipresent fear of death. The frightening vision of inevitable death, he said, interferes with one’s enjoyment of life and leaves no pleasure undisturbed. In his view, there was only one proper goal of philosophy: to alleviate human misery. But in historical reality, Epicurus did not advocate sensuous pleasure he was far more concerned with the attainment of tranquility (ataraxia).Įpicurus practiced “medical philosophy” and insisted that just as the doctor treats the body, the philosopher must treat the soul. Most people today are familiar with his name through the word epicure or epicurean, to signify a person devoted to refined sensuous enjoyment (especially good food and drink). He was born in the year 341 B.C.E., shortly after the death of Plato, and died in 270 B.C.E. The more I learn about this extraordinary Athenian thinker, the more strongly I recognize Epicurus as the proto-existential psychotherapist, and I will make use of his ideas throughout this work. Indeed, in my work as a therapist, I take as my intellectual ancestors not so much the great psychiatrists and psychologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-Pinel, Freud, Jung, Pavlov, Rorschach, and Skinner-but classical Greek philosophers, particularly Epicurus. As a psychotherapist treating many individuals struggling with death anxiety, I have found that ancient wisdom, particularly that of the ancient Greek philosophers, is thoroughly relevant today. For some of us the fear of death manifests only indirectly, either as generalized unrest or masqueraded as another psychological symptom other individuals experience an explicit and conscious stream of anxiety about death and for some of us the fear of death erupts into terror that negates all happiness and fulfillment.įor eons, thoughtful philosophers have attempted to dress the wound of mortality and to help us fashion lives of harmony and peace. As he feared death, so do we all-each and every man, woman, and child. When I die shall I not be like Enkidu? Sorrow enters my heart. Four thousand years ago, the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh reflected on the death of his friend Enkidu with the words from the epigraph above: “Thou hast become dark and cannot hear me. Mortality has haunted us from the beginning of history. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life.
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