Book and Media Reviews

Abstract

The Psychology of Death Robert Kastenbaum. New York: Springer Publishing Company (www.springerpub.com). 2000, 318 pp., $41.95 (hardcover). The Psychology of Death is a short book composed of only seven chapters. Kastenbaum utilizes the subject of death as a mirror to reflect upon the entire field of life span developmental psychology and, in essence, upon the meaning and purpose of human life. Each chapter examines the meaning of death developmentally beginning with the child's construction of death to the adult deathbed scenes at the end of the life span. In Kastenbaum's elegant and yet restrained prose, we are told that a "Child Shall Guide Us." Kastenbaum teaches us that the child's concept of death is a composite construction-a construction composed of the child's personal experiences, social milieu and level of cognitive development. In the tradition of Piaget, Kastenbaum demonstrates that the child's concept of death evolves through several cognitive stages beginning with the child's belief of the impermanence of death to, as they grow older, a more sophisticated belief that focuses on the permanence and irreversibility of death. The adult concept of death does not remain static either and also evolves and is impacted by changes in the adult's spirituality, culture, and biomedical environment. Yet, like a child, adults may come full circle to believe in the impermanence of death, once again, albeit with a more sophisticated concept. For the experts the question arises: When exactly is a person considered truly dead? Though seemingly simple, this question is difficult to answer definitively. In some sense, the exact point of death is indefinable. There are a number of competing definitions (constructions) of death available to determine time of death including the latest biomedical measures that may offer different and sometimes contradictory answers. Kastenbaum wisely sidesteps this thorny problem by stating that his task is not necessarily to choose which alternative construction of death is correct but to demonstrate how the construct of death one ultimately chooses has profound impact upon one's values, attitudes, moral code, comportment, and ultimately upon one's meaning and purpose in living. From the very beginning of its history, Kastenbaum notes that psychology has failed to provide us with a satisfactory understanding of death beginning with early behaviorism (which doesn't even acknowledge death) to the recent innovations in developmental theory, which sees death as a task that one must spend one's elderly years preparing for, to cross-cultural studies that emphasize Eastern and Western philosophies which, according to Kastenbaum, people tend to rearrange to suit their own cultural preferences and biases. Oddly enough, despite the fierce assaults and discrediting by most experts of Freud's psychoanalysis, Kastenbaum suggests that Freud's dual notion of the death and life instincts does help us understand many hard-to-describe aspects of death such as "naming or owning the unnamable," "doing death," and "killing to stay alive." Kastenbaum notes further that Freud has scientific support for his instinctual theory not only from nature but also from human developmental experiences, and human history. …