Horror Of Death Research Articles

The lived experiences of operating room nurses from the surgery on COVID-19 patients: a phenomenological study

BackgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, some patients who were transported to the operating room for emergency surgery had COVID-19; operating room nurses should be in direct contact with these patients in a small and closed space of the operating room. This can lead to unpleasant experiences for these people. Accordingly, this study was conducted to understand the experience of operating room nurses during the surgery of COVID-19 patients.MethodsThis qualitative study is a descriptive phenomenological study. Sampling was done purposefully and participants were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The data of this study was obtained through semi-structured interviews with 12 participants and analyzed using the Colaizzi method.ResultsFour main themes and 13 sub-themes were presented in this study: (1) feeling heroic (being a savior, self-sacrificing). (2) Exacerbating burnout (emotional exhaustion, feeling of incompetence, physical overtiredness). (3) Psychiatric crisis (destructive anxiety, horror of death, worrying about being a carrier, drastic feeling of pity). (4) Feeling the need for support (need for professional support, need for emotional support, need for social support).ConclusionThe results of this study show that operating room nurses experienced conflicting feelings during surgery on patients with COVID-19. So the feeling of being a hero was a heartwarming experience, but the aggravation of job burnout and mental crisis was unpleasant for them. Also, these people have experienced the need to be supported in various aspects.

The horror of death: A Foucauldian reading of power relations in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now

Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness (1899) addresses the brutality underlying Europe’s colonisation of Africa. Its film adaptation, Apocalypse Now (1979), shows the US Army’s radical practices in the Vietnam War. A comparative study of power relations on both works will help understand the workings of power in extreme sociopolitical circumstances devoid of a democratic environment. This article analyses both cultural products under the theoretical framework of Michel Foucault’s writings on power. Three conceptual nuclei where power relations emanate are scrutinised independently: imperialism and the resulting local resistance; internal hierarchies in colonial organisations; and the role of gender. The analysis shows that absolute power is intolerable, death its ultimate limit, and confession its main liberating mechanism.

The horror of death: A Foucauldian reading of power relations in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now

Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness (1899) addresses the brutality underlying Europe’s colonisation of Africa. Its film adaptation, Apocalypse Now (1979), shows the US Army’s radical practices in the Vietnam War. A comparative study of power relations on both works will help understand the workings of power in extreme sociopolitical circumstances devoid of a democratic environment. This article analyses both cultural products under the theoretical framework of Michel Foucault’s writings on power. Three conceptual nuclei where power relations emanate are scrutinised independently: imperialism and the resulting local resistance; internal hierarchies in colonial organisations; and the role of gender. The analysis shows that absolute power is intolerable, death its ultimate limit, and confession its main liberating mechanism.

Bypassing the horror of death by the use of feminine writing: a study of The Balcony by Genet

پژوهش حاضر، با کمک گرفتن از آرای فمنیست‌های فرانسوی —ژولیا کریستوا و هلن سیکسو— و همچنین موریس بلانشو سعی در واکاوی «زنانگی» و ارتباطش با «مرگ» در نمایشنامه بالکن دارد. این دو مفهوم در تاریخ اندیشه نرینه-منطق-محور غربی همواره به عنوان «دیگری» طرد شده‌اند. به اعتقاد هلن سیکسو ریشه این طردشدگی در مورد زنان، برمی‌گرد به زبان که مفاهیم را به دوگانه‌های متضاد دسته بندی و ارزش‌گذاری می‌کند. به اعتقاد پژوهشگر، علت طرد شدن مفهوم مرگ را نیز باید در زبان جست؛ بلانشو در مقاله «ادبیات و حق مرگ» به این خلأ اشاره می‌کند و وظیفه ادبیات را اعطای تجربه مرگ به خواننده، و در نتیجه پر کردن این خلأ برمی‌شمرد. ژان ژنه در نمایشنامه بالکن، با عبور از مرزهای نظم نمادین، واسازی دوقطبی-نگریِ زبانِ مردانه، و تکیه بر وجه نشانه‌ای دلالت‌پردازی به جای وجه نمادین، به خلق زبانی نو دست می‌زند که با معیارهای سیکسو و کریستوا می‌توان آن را «زنانه» نامید. این اثر به کمک ویژگی‌های مادرانه زبان و روایتش، قادر شده تا تجربه مرگ را به عنوان یکی از عناصر اصلی به درون خود راه دهد، و وظیفه ادبیات در قبال اعطای تجربه مرگ به خواننده—به زعم بلانشو—را به جای آورد.

Seeing the world through the eyes of God: Reading the Book of Qoheleth in the light of Genesis 1:1–2:4a

Religious and existential concerns interweave in many books of the Bible to give attention to human’s existential anguish, the sense of guilt, the horror of death, the atrocious experience of the absurd. While many contemporary existentialist philosophers prefer to do without God in the attempt to deal with human’s existential contradictions, the search takes the authors of the Bible through intense spiritual struggles as they attempt to confront the belief in the goodness of God with the human experience of futility in all its facets. We want to seek a meeting point between the existentialist concerns of the book of Qoholeth with the profound theology of meaningfulness as elaborated in Genesis 1:1–2:4a. Our article therefore, has a decidedly pastoral orientation. We will attempt to move, through an analysis of select texts, to a re-affirmation of one of the spiritual truths that many mystics have tried to teach: that reason alone is not enough to guide the human person to the mysteries of life, the believer has to learn to unite with God or to the realities themselves to discover the fundamental goodness in many of the experiences that, in human perspectives, seem to be absurd.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: We believe such union is needed in a world where racism, violence to minorities, gender inequalities, homophobic attitudes are thickening the clouds of discrimination and threatening some to doubt the fundamental goodness of creation as made by God.

The Ageing Poet and Death Anxiety: Art as Existential Therapy in John Pepper Clark’s "Of Sleep And Old Age"

Death anxiety refers to the human experience of death awareness and the accompanying inescapable disquiet it provokes. It is a phenomenon in human existence which has attracted substantial studies from existential and psychological perspectives. Noting that every individual experiences this anxiety at some point in life, largely as a result of the awareness of the inevitability of death, the manner and extent to which it is experienced vary from individuals. Meanwhile, existential reflections have described ‘death acceptance’ as the healthy route to lessening this angst. It therefore presupposes that acceptance of death (i.e. knowing that one is a being-towards-death and therefore embracing and acknowledging it) is existentially therapeutic. On this note, in studying J. P. Clark’s Of Sleep and Old Age, artistic creativity is being constructed in the study as an existential therapy against death anxiety for the poetic persona. It is premised, on the one hand, on the poet’s eloquent vision of the boredom of existence and the horror of death which characterize the atmosphere of the text. On the other, the poet’s age has been considered as a factor-agent which has bestowed on him the capacity to be conscious of an imminent death, thereby accepting it via keen reflections in his art. The study adopts two theoretical models in existential studies: (1) Monika Ardelt’s ‘Wisdom’, ‘Religiosity’ and ‘Purpose in Life’ and (2) John Sommers-Flanagan and Rita Sommers-Flanagan’s model of ‘Existential Therapy’ to assess the sway and/or centrality of death anxiety to understanding the text.

Mythical allegories of fear (a psychoanalytic aspect)

Myths of all nations filled with images of scary creatures. Historians of religion, ethnologists, experts myths explain them differently, mainly when they come together in mind that all together they certify man's fear of the gods. But this does not explain the fact that a wide variety of creepy creatures, each intricate mythology is inexhaustible and inexplicably ugly. It is proposed to take a look at the most famous monsters of Greek mythology in aspect of psychoanalytic combined with allegorical approach, since it is an allegory includes powerful resource codification mental states. Fears rights embodied in the mythical monsters and populate the world. Tree-headed Cerberus (later three-headed dragon in fairy tales) and Medusa Gorgon is the brightest in Greek mythology, allegory fear of death. Fears rights embodied in the mythical monsters and populate the world. Three-headed Cerberus (later three-headed dragon in fairy tales) and Medusa Gorgon is the brightest in Greek mythology, allegory fear of death. Fear of death is the fear of the underworld in the image of Cerberus, he exposed the relative control and can even be overcome. The horror of death which suddenly embraces man and kills her in the image of Medusa Gorgon. Allegory of the fear of death and horror of death - various images that cause different themes. Complex movements of the inner life of people have learned to understand and analyze only the new time, but even in mythical times of mankind were put into allegorical codes that are interpreted each time differently.

An Attempt at a History of Mentality in Late Imperial China

Some elements of Puritanism in Chinese tradition are obviously different from the well-known intellectual phenomenon in the West; in the Neo-Confucian ambit the key question concerns “order–disorder,” “harmony–disharmony” in society and inside one’s personality, rather than “sin” and “purity” in personal morality. Yet we also find that chastity is involved in the contrast between the two concepts of purity and pollution and the idea of “obscene” (meaning “inauspicious,” “ill-omened,” “profane”) allows us to uncover a darker side to sexual representation. Death seems another source of active or passive pollution: this effect occurs after contaminational contact with human or animal remains. Thus death is the source of “desecration,” or of “contamination,” especially when it is the consequence of violence. This means that in Chinese culture, a sense of impurity seems to be driven by the horror of death and the fear of being overwhelmed by the passion of love; respectively, thanatos and eros. Other topics may also be associated, such as mental insanity referring to what is different, abnormal, strange, and socially subversive. The clean–unclean distinction originally responded to a basic visceral feeling—horror and repulsion/disgust—that is typically associated with hygienic worries and matter that is perceived as repugnant and inedible. But these basic ideas seem to have been symbolically extended to cope with the subconscious and metaphysical spheres: the horror of death and the fear of being overwhelmed by passion, the mysteries which lie behind these emotions, and the attempt to sublimate such fears into an impulse to transcend the red dust of our limited existence.

Preface

Preface Bruce Jennings At the time of the Karen Ann Quinlan case in 1975, the law and ethics of forgoing life-sustaining treatment were terra incognita. By 1990, the Nancy Beth Cruzan case, the federal Patient Self-Determination Act, and court rulings and statutes in all fifty states had created a widely accepted framework for decision-making near the end of life. Establishing this framework is one of the great accomplishments in bioethics. Or so goes one common story. Expanded a little, the story goes like this: Thirty years ago, awareness began to grow that the experience of dying (for the individual, for the family, and often for health caregivers) was often a horror. Sentiment began to grow behind a movement to improve end of life care, and this reform movement was based on the belief that the horror of death was avoidable because it does not reside in dying or death per se, but in a poorly managed dying. What needed to be done, the reformers saw, was to look death in the face and wrest control over dying from doctors and hospitals, with their powerful but mindless drugs and machines—virtual loose cannons that could be as burdensome for some as they were beneficial to others. If lack of control, the technological imperative, and unrelieved pain and suffering are what make dying fearful, then the key to improving end of life care is twofold: First, we should enlist the law to empower persons to dictate the terms of their own medical care at the end of life (via constitutional rights and legally authorized advance directives). Second, we should enlist medicine to improve its skill at treating pain and suffering (financing for hospice and professional education in palliative care). If we could do these two things (the reformers hoped and believed), ordinary people and their families—the intended beneficiaries of all this work—would embrace the reforms with open arms, insist on making their own medical decisions at life's end, and complete advance directives. By 1990, although work remained to be done to bring this agenda to fruition, the agenda itself, at least, was settled. This story is partly true, and some of the reformers' vision has been realized. Today people have much more control of their medical care at the end of life, the technological imperative has been bridled to some extent, and palliative care is taken more seriously in the medical mainstream. Over 700,000 people who die each year receive hospice services for at least a short period of time before death; and roughly three-quarters of all deaths in hospitals now come after some explicit decision has been made to forgo the use of some type of potentially life-prolonging intervention. Many people are fortunate enough to die with pain kept to a minimum, surrounded by the people they love, in a setting attentive to their spiritual, emotional, and physical needs. That is progress. But while the story is partly true, it is altogether too facile and simplistic. What progress has been made is now in danger of being undone. The framework of principles for legitimate decision-making at the end of life built by the courts, the legislatures, and in the professional and ethical literature has not been embraced—indeed, it has been rejected, at least in large part—by increasingly powerful and vocal minorities; and political support for this framework, as well as its intellectual justification, seems to be eroding. This is a critical problem. It points to flaws in both our concepts and our institutions. Important assumptions—about autonomy, quality of life, trust, family dynamics, and the motivations of professionals and laypeople—need to be rethought. Our systems of decision-making and care delivery near the end of life need to be redesigned. The topic of end of life care came into its own during the 1990s. The decade began with the Cruzan case, the Supreme Court's first landmark ruling on end of life care, in which the Court affirmed the constitutional right to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment. This was quickly followed by passage of the federal Patient Self-Determination Act, and of durable power of attorney for health...

Flüssigkeitsverzicht

Three case histories are presented, in which terminal hydration was omitted. Two patients were in the terminal phase of a menigiosis carcinomatosa and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, the third was completely aphasic and hemiplegic after ischemic stroke. All three died peacefully without signs of suffering or thirst. The psychological aspects of therapeutic-palliative change and the archetypical horror of death are considered. The moral justification is discussed in relation to the "Principles for Physicians Accompanying the Dying" of the German chamber of physicians. The respect of the patient's will is the guiding principle. These ethical controversies should be discussed sincerely and frankly so that the society is enabled to follow.

Sketches for Ferdinand Hodler'sCommunion with Infinity

When Ferdinand Hodler first exhibited his Communion with Infinity (Fig. 1) in 1893, his depiction of a nude young woman straining toward the heavens appeared to be, with its positive imagery and optimistic theme, a complete departure from his recent and well-known paintings. Prior to that time, Hodler had concerned himself primarily with themes of deprivation and discouragement; in The Disappointed Souls (Fig. 2) of 1891–92, he had conveyed the hopeless, meaningless waiting for death that he observed in the poverty-stricken old men with whom he lived.1 And in the 1890 Night (Fig. 3), Hodler had revealed this horror of death in a much more personal way, by depicting himself as the central sleeping figure who is awakened, terrified and screaming into the dark, by the black-draped phantom of death. But in 1893, these lugubrious thoughts and pessimistic premonitions seemed to have vanished from his mind, and from his painting. In Communion with Infinity, Hodler's public saw for the first time in several years...

Some reactions toward death among college students.

Certain thoughts, attitudes, and behavior reactions toward death that were found among college students in two midwestern universities were analyzed. In general, the data indicated that sex differences are not sharply enough differentiated to be considered very significant. The great majority of the 825 subjects reported that they think of their own death very rarely or only occasionally. Some of the special circumstances that caused the subjects most often to entertain thoughts of their own death are depressed mood, funeral services, misfortune or failure, an accident, gloomy days. Rarely did subjects picture themselves in imagination as dying or being dead. 21% reported that occasionally they are inclined to entertain thoughts of some specific disease which may cause their death, while 51% occasionally entertain thoughts of being killed in an accident. Almost 80% expressed a strong wish to live after death. Only 12% reported that they had a strong fear or horror of death. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)