0.11 Erik erikson  (Page 24/26)

I was deeply touched on one visit to Dad when a flash of pleasure crossed his face as I entered the room, and he said faintly to himself, Meine Tochter (“my daughter” in his native tongue). (pg. 204; Bloland, 2005)

Carl Rogers was largely unconcerned about death, he seldom thought about it. He was, however, quite interested in the work of Kubler-Ross, particularly after he experienced his wife’s dying process. One night, when his wife was near death, he told her that she should not feel obligated to live, all was well with her family, and that she should feel free to live or die, as she wished. After Rogers left that evening, his wife called for the nurses, thanked them for all they had done, and told them she was going to die. By the next morning she was in a coma, and by the next day she was dead (Rogers, 1980). This experience was profoundly moving for Rogers, and awakened a deep spirituality in him, but with a decidedly unscientific aspect to it. Kubler-Ross joined Carl Jung in believing in synchronicity and the possibility of out-of-body experiences, life after death, and the like (see Kubler-Ross, 1983, 1997). Rogers also came to believe in such possibilities. Helen Rogers reported seeing evil figures and the Devil by her hospital bed, as well as a white light that would come and begin to lift her from the bed. Earlier the two of them had attended sessions with a medium who claimed to be able to contact the dead. Rogers was thoroughly convinced that the medium’s abilities were real, and that she had contacted Helen’s deceased sister, and later Helen Rogers herself. According to Rogers, each event was “an incredible, and certainly non-fraudulent experience” (Rogers, 1980).

For the individual who is, indeed, about to die, what remains of life? Kubler-Ross, Joan Erikson, and Ram Dass all see death itself as a final stage of growth. For Joan Erikson, when hope and trust can no longer sustain the individual, “to face down despair with faith and appropriate humility is perhaps the wisest course,” and one may then strive for gerotranscendence. Indeed, the ninth stage of development proposed by Joan Erikson seems quite similar to the stage of acceptance proposed by Kubler-Ross (Erikson&Erikson, 1997). Ram Dass talks about the different perspective on death in India, and how it helped him to believe that although the body and the mind, as well as their reflection in the ego/self, could die, the soul was something that would exist forever. Accordingly, it is more common in India, and in many other cultures, to prepare for death. The failure to do so in America can have painful consequences:

When I was in my 30s, my mother was diagnosed with a terminal blood disorder. I went to visit her in the hospital, and all the people around her were saying things like, “You look great!” “You’ll be home in no time!” But she looked terrible, and it was likely she’d never come home again. No one - not my father, her sister or the rabbi - would tell her the truth. In that moment I saw just how isolated she was. She was dying and no one would talk to her about death. We spoke about it, Soul to Soul, and she began to relax. (pg. 149; Ram Dass, 2000)