Death and the Human Condition. (iUniverse, Inc)

This book is a psychological-psychiatric work dealing comprehensively with various conceptualizations of the nature and implications of death and of identity in the afterlife, and of different psychological reactions to, and attitudes toward, death. It is based almost entirely on my own personal psychological, theological, and philosophical introspections on this topic over the course of a lifetime, as well as on fifty years of interactions with my patients as a physician and psychiatrist on this subject matter. No attempt is made to consider in systematic fashion the views of other professionals who have written in this area, although such psychoanalytic myths as “death terror” and “creativity as a defense against death” are debunked.

It is important to emphasize at the very outset that, unlike most other psychological treatises on death that are veritable compendia of existing empirical and theoretical knowledge in this field, and which systematically present, evaluate, and compare different approaches to, and general theories of, death, this book is primarily a personal document--an extended essay embodying the fruit of strictly my own thinking and conclusions on this topic over the past half-century as a physician, psychiatrist, and psychologist.

Thus, in no sense is this a traditional “scholarly” book: It is not a compilation, history, critique, or integration of prior and current thinking about the nature of, or attitudes toward, death held by authorities in this field. Rather, it is a non-technical presentation of my own personal psychological, psychiatric, biological, cosmological, and theological thoughts on the subject based largely on my own professional experience.

• Chapter 2: Conceptualizations of the Nature and Implications of Death
• Chapter 10: Epilogue