Confronting Death: Values, Institutions, and Human Mortality

By David Wendell Moller

Book Overview

In this masterfully written text, Moller powerfully critiques how modern technology and bureaucracy, along with professionalization, have come to dehumanize the experience of death for both the dying and their survivors. Beginning with an historical overview of traditional patterns of death and dying, Moller examines the technological advances of the medical profession and the effects, both social and individual, that modern medicine has had on our perception of death, including pain and suffering, the expanding gap between clinical and spiritual death, and how our traditional social apparatuses help us to respond to death and dying. Chapters on funerals, grief, suicide, the death of children, the holocaust, and a critique of therapeutic models illustrate how doctors have come to control the process of dying, how professional funeral directors dominate funerals, and how professional therapists channel the grief of survivors. Invaluable for psychology, nursing, and religion courses in death and dying, this text offers a penetrating synthesis of the complex personal and social issues surrounding our mortality.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195042964
• ISBN13: 9780195042962
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

great book

The condition of the book was just as they described it. I am pleased with the condition, and the book is really interesting. It's not the easiest thing to read, however, if you have recently experienced death in your life. The thanatology snapshots are great, but you might want to keep some tissues handy.