Research Catalog

Title

• Confronting death : values, institutions, and human mortality / David Wendell Moller.

Author

Moller, David Wendell

Publication

New York : Oxford University Press, 1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

x, 305 p. : ill.; 22 cm.

Summary

"In this masterfully written text, Moller powerfully critiques how modern technology and bureaucracy, along with professionalization, have come to dehumanize the experience of death for both the dying and their survivors. Beginning with an historical overview of traditional patterns of death and dying, Moller examines the technological advances of the medical profession and the effects, both social and individual, that modern medicine has had on our perception of death, including pain and suffering, the expanding gap between clinical and spiritual death, and how our traditional social apparatuses help us to respond to death and dying. Chapters on funerals, grief, suicide, the death of children, the holocaust, and a critique of therapeutic models illustrate how doctors have come to control the process of dying, how professional funeral directors dominate funerals, and how professional therapists channel the grief of survivors. Invaluable for psychology, nursing, and religion courses in death and dying, this text offers a penetrating synthesis of the complex personal and social issues surrounding our mortality." -- Publisher's description.

Subject

• Attitude to Death
• Bereavement
• Death
• Death > Psychological aspects
• Death > Social aspects
• Death > Social aspects
• Funeral Rites
• Funeral rites and ceremonies
• Thanatology
• Thanatology

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 267-295) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

1. Dying and Historical Context -- 2. The Modern Organization of Death -- 3. The Dying Patient: A Creation of the Modern Organization of Death -- 4. Funerals as Social Facts -- 5. Grief and Individualism: The Decline of Ritual and the Emergence of the Therapeutic Model -- 6. On Dying, Death, and Children -- 7. The Death of Humans by Humans, Part One: Violent Deaths of Suicide -- 8. The Death of Humans by Humans, Part Two: The Holocaust and the Technology of Genocide -- 9. Easing Death's Sting: A Conclusion.

ISBN

• 0195042956 (clothbound : acid-free paper)
• 0195042964 (paperbound : acid-free paper)

LCCN

^^^94030042^

OCLC

30893293

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library