Microsoft Word Elisabeth Kubler-Ross On Death And Dying doc

 
PATIENT: Yes. 
 
DOCTOR: Because you can always be brilliant. 
 
PATIENT: Well, when we say brilliant, we mean, ah, applying brilliance in action. That's what she 
wants. 
 
CHAPLAIN: I hear you saying successful. 
 
PATIENT: Successful, that's it. 
 
DOCTOR: Um hm. 
 
CHAPLAIN: That they not only have the capacity but that they have done something with it. But 
what comes through to me here is how with this kind of thing going on it kind of pushes aside any 
right or opportunity you might have to actually talk about yourself and your ills. 
 
PATIENT: That's right, and the children too. 
 
CHAPLAIN: This is a concern that I have. 
 
PATIENT: The children are definitely held down, I feel, by the overriding demands of their mother. 
She's a brilliant seamstress, for instance, in addition to being a teacher. She can tailor-make a man's 
suit over the weekend from the cloth. And it will be better looking than any suit you'll see, it will be 
like a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar suit. 
 
DOCTOR: But how does all that make you feel? 
 
PATIENT: Well, it makes me feel this way, that it wouldn't make any difference to me how great 
she is because I admire her like-I don't know how you would say it-but like an idol, you know. It 
wouldn't make any difference if she didn't insist upon me being the same. 
 
DOCTOR: Yes. How can you take your illness then? 
 
PATIENT: This is the main thing really. 
 
DOCTOR: That's what we are really trying to find out, how to help you 
 
PATIENT: This is really the main thing-Because you see if you have an illness, and you have the 
pain, and you have the grief that's unresolved, and you have a person that you are living 
 
(P88) 
 
with who meets every aspect on the grief business, you know, you say, well, I don't know how I'm 
going to live through this business of our daughter dying and that sort of thing, the answer comes 
right back, "Keep your chin up, positive thinking," in fact she's a fan of positive thinking. 

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CHAPLAIN: You keep going fast enough and you won't have to stop and think about it. 
 
PATIENT: That's right. 
 
DOCTOR: But he is ready to think and talk about it. You should talk about it; you have to have 
somebody to talk about it. 
 
PATIENT: Your wife stops you right in the middle of a sentence. No possibility to talk to her about 
any of these things. 
 
CHAPLAIN: I gather you've got a lot of faith within yourself. 
 
PATIENT: I've done a lot of thinking within myself on how to resolve these problems. Because I'm 
really a very hard worker just like she would like me to be. I've always been, I've always been a 
very brilliant student. In the course I took at the University I got A's and B's in all the courses. 
 
CHAPLAIN: But I hear you saying you have the capacity for it but you are aware that hard work 
isn't going to resolve the kind of conflicts that life has created at this point. You made a distinction 
between thinking of life and thinking of death, remember? 
 
DOCTOR: Do you ever think about dying? 
 
PATIENT: Yes. What were you going to say about it? 
 
CHAPLAIN: I just wondered what thoughts you had about life in relationship to death and vice 
versa. 
 
PATIENT: Well, ah, we'll have to admit it, I've never thought of death so much as a thing, per se, 
but I have thought of the 
 
worthlessness of life under such situations. " 
 
CHAPLAIN: The worthlessness? 
 
PATIENT: That if I were to die tomorrow, my wife would go on perfectly normal. 
 
DOCTOR: just like nothing happened? 
 
PATIENT: That's the way I feeL She wouldn't miss a beat. 
 
CHAPLAIN: just as she did with the other deaths? Or a little differently? 
 
PATIENT: After the death of my daughter, why, she worked on 
 
her children. But if I didn't leave any children her life wouldn't change at all. 
 

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CHAPLAIN: What gives you the strength to make a comment that one of the exciting things about 
coming here was that they gave you a sense of hope. They said there are some things they can do 
for you and they are doing them. What hit you inside in your own desire to live? In spite of the 
worthlessness of your feelings, there is something inside you that has found satisfaction and desire 
to go on. Is this faith? 
 
PATIENT: Well, it's a kind of a blind hope more than anything else, I would say, and also my 
church group has sustained me a great deal. I've been active in Presbyterian church work for years 
and years and years. The fact that I could do a little bit which my wife didn't like, of course, like 
sing in the choir and teaching Sunday school and things like that. Well, the fact that I was able to 
do a few-things like that which I felt were worthwhile in the community and the work like that 
helped me. But every ounce of work I did along that line was considered to be worthless because of 
the fact that it didn't contribute to making a lot of money. 
 
DOCTOR: But that's her concept. Your concept is still that it was worthwhile? 
 
PATIENT: I think it's worthwhile, very worthwhile. 
 
DOCTOR: You see, I think this is the important thing. That you still have a sense of worth. This is 
why I think hope is meaningful to you. You still want to live. You don't really want to die, do you? 
That's why you came to this hospital. 
 
PATIENT: Right. 
 
DOCTOR: What does death mean to you? It's a difficult question but maybe you can answer it. 
 
PATIENT: What does death mean to me? 
 
DOCTOR: What does death mean to you? 
 
PATIENT: Death. It means a cessation of valuable activity. By valuable in my case I don't feel the 
same way as my wife. I don't mean money-making activities. 
 
CHAPLAIN: You're talking about singing in the choir and teaching Sunday school. Being with 
people, this kind of thing. 
 
DOCTOR: Yes. 
 
(P90) 
 
PATIENT: I've always been active in community work, all sorts of 
 different activities. That one thing that makes life worthless 
 right now is the fact that I looked upon myself from the other 
 doctor's point of view as not ever being able to go back to 
 these things. 
DOCTOR: And what are you doing right now in here? 
PATIENT: Hm? 

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