Visitors at the End of Life : Finding Meaning and Purpose in Near-Death Phenomena

Allan (Professor of Community Health Kellehear

ISBN 10: 0231182147 / ISBN 13: 9780231182140

Published by Columbia University Press Jul 2020, 2020

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Visitors at the End of Life : Finding Meaning and Purpose in Near-Death Phenomena
• Publisher: Columbia University Press Jul 2020
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231182147
• ISBN 13: 9780231182140
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 237W x 160H x 21D millimeters 237 millimeters width by 160 millimeters height by 21 millimeters depth
• Weight: 428 grams

About this title

Synopsis

About 30 percent of hospice patients report a “visitation” by someone who is not there, a phenomenon known in end-of-life care as a deathbed vision. These visions can be of dead friends or family members and occur on average three days before death. Strikingly, individuals from wildly diverse geographic regions and religions―from New York to Japan to Moldova to Papua New Guinea―report similar visions. Appearances of our dead during serious illness, crises, or bereavement are as old as the historical record. But in recent years, we have tended to explain them in either the fantastical terms of the supernatural or the reductive terms of neuroscience.

This book is about how, when, and why our dead visit us. Allan Kellehear―a medical sociologist and expert on death, dying, and palliative care―has gathered data and conducted studies on these experiences across cultures. He also draws on the long-neglected work of early anthropologists who developed cultural explanations about why the dead visit. Deathbed visions conform to the rituals that underpin basic social relations and expectations―customs of greeting, support, exchange, gift-giving, and vigils―because the dead must communicate with us in a social language that we recognize. Kellehear emphasizes the personal consequences for those who encounter these visions, revealing their significance for how the dying person makes meaning of their experiences. Providing vital understanding of a widespread yet mysterious phenomenon, Visitors at the End of Life offers insights for palliative care professionals, researchers, and the bereaved.

About the Author

Allan Kellehear is 50th Anniversary Professor of End of Life Care at the University of Bradford. His books include A Social History of Dying (2007) and The Inner Life of the Dying Person (Columbia, 2014).