Fear Of Death In Steve Taylor's Suicide Theory

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Death is the quintessential personal experience that brings with it a myriad of emotions depending on age, culture, and various social factors such as religious or spiritual beliefs, cultural norms, and geography, to name a few (Committee on Approaching Death). Sooner or later, we all must face the inevitability of our mortality. For most of us, death is not sudden; rather, death will come gradually through the process of one or more diseases for which there is no curative solution. According to psychologist Steve Taylor, Ph.D., the fear of death creates an anxiety and unease which is coined Terror Theory. This theory suggests that when death is not imminent, the subconscious fear leads to behaviors such as status-seeking or strongly defending the values of our culture. “We feel threatened by death and so seek security and significance to defend ourselves against it.” Nonetheless, Taylor states that this is not necessarily the case when we are finally faced with death as a reality and not as an abstract thought that is a distant event. For many with whom death is an imminent reality, Taylor suggests that such a situation becomes a paradoxically positive experience. Taylor’s interviews with people facing terminal diseases and near death experiences led him to what he coined …show more content…

In the United States at least, patients have the legal right to draft advanced directives that no extraordinary measures be employed by health care professionals to sustain a patient’s life. In particular, the Do Not Resuscitate Comfort Care (DNRCC) is a legal document where a dying person receives any care that eases pain and suffering in the final days of life, but no resuscitative measures to save or sustain life (Do Not Resuscitate Orders and Comfort Care). While the most conservative of end of life procedures, there are fundamental flaws that have been there since its

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