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Preface | |
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As We Think about Death | |
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Not Thinking about Death: A Failed Experiment | |
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Listening and Communicating | |
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Your Self-Inventory of Attitudes, Beliefs, and Feelings | |
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Some Answers-and the Questions They Raise | |
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Knowledge Base | |
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Attitudes, Experiences, Beliefs, Feelings | |
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How Does State of Mind Affect Death-Related Behavior? | |
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Man is Mortal: But What Does That Have to Do with Me? | |
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Anxiety, Denial, and Acceptance: Three Core Concepts | |
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Theories and Studies of Death Anxiety | |
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Major Findings from Self-Reports of Death Anxiety | |
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How Much Do We Fear Death? | |
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Are There Gender Differences in Death Anxiety? | |
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Are There Age Differences in Death Anxiety? | |
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Is Death Anxiety Related to Mental Health and Illness? | |
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Does Religious Belief Lower or Raise Death Anxiety? | |
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Situational Death Anxiety | |
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Theoretical Perspectives on Death Anxiety | |
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Early Psychoanalytic Theory | |
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The Existential Challenge | |
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Edge Theory | |
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Accepting and Denying Death | |
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Types and Contexts of Acceptance and Denial | |
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The Interpersonal Side of Acceptance and Denial | |
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Anxiety, Denial, and Acceptance: How Should We Respond? | |
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In the Shade of the Jambu Tree | |
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Summary | |
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What is Death? What Does Death Mean? | |
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Competing Ideas about the Nature and Meaning of Death | |
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Death as Observed, proclaimed, and Imagined | |
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Death as Symbolic Construction | |
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Biomedical Approaches to the Definition of Death | |
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Traditional Determination of Death | |
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Ways of Being Dead | |
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Brain Death and the Harvard Criteria | |
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The Harvard Criteria | |
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The Current Scene | |
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Event Versus State | |
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What Does Death Mean? | |
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Interpretations of the Death State | |
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Enfeebled Life | |
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Continuation | |
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Perpetual Development | |
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Waiting | |
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Cycling and Recycling | |
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Nothing | |
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Virtual, Therefore Not Death | |
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Implications of the Ways in Which We Interpret Death | |
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Conditions That Resemble Death | |
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Inorganic and Unresponsive | |
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Sleep and Altered States of Consciousness | |
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Beings Who Resemble or Represent Death | |
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Death as a Person | |
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How We Personify Death: The First Study | |
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The Follow-Up Study | |
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Conditions That Death Resembles | |
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Social Death | |
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Phenomenological Death | |
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Death as an Agent of Personal, Political, and Social Change | |
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The Great Leveler | |
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The Great Validator | |
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Death Unites/Separates | |
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The Ultimate Problem or the Ultimate Solution? | |
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The Ultimate Meaningless Event | |
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Summary | |
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The Death System | |
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A World Without Death | |
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General Consequences | |
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Personal Consequences | |
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Basic Characteristics of the Death System | |
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Components of the Death System | |
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People | |
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Places | |
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Times | |
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Objects | |
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Symbols | |
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Functions of the Death System | |
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Warnings and Predictions | |
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Preventing Death | |
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Caring for the Dying | |
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Disposing of the Dead | |
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Social Consolidation After Death | |
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Making Sense of Death | |
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Killing | |
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War as a Function of Society | |
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A Deadly Species | |
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Sacrifice: Killing for Life | |
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Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina-Challenges to the Death System | |
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Tsunami: A Stealth Wave and Its Impact | |
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Hurricanes Katrina and Rita | |
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The Katrina Timeline | |
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Hurricane Katrina and the Death System | |
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How our Death System Has Been Changing-And the "Deathniks" who are Making A difference | |
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Changing Ways of Life, Changing Ways of Death | |
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The Beginnings of Death Education, Research, and Counseling | |
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Causes of Death: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow | |
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Basic Terms and Concepts | |
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Leading Causes of Death in the United States Today | |
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What Will Be the Cause of My Death? | |
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Causes of Death in the Future? | |
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Summary | |
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Dying: Transition from Life | |
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The Moment of Death: Is it Vanishing? | |
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The Slipping Away | |
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Dying as Transition | |
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What is Dying, and When Does it Begin? | |
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Individual and Interpersonal Responses | |
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Onset of the Dying Process: Alternative Perspectives | |
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Trajectories of Dying: From Beginning to End | |
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Certainty and Time | |
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The Lingering Trajectory | |
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The Expected Quick Trajectory | |
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The Unexpected Quick Trajectory | |
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Life-or-Death Emergencies | |
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Healthy People Who are at Risk: Hemophilia | |
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Guarded Feelings, Subtle Communications | |
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Difficulties in Communication | |
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Doctor-Patient Communication: The SUPPORT Study | |
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Improving Communication | |
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Individuality and Universality in the Experience of Dying | |
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Factors that Influence the Experience of Dying | |
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Where and How We Die-From the Abstract to the Particular | |
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Theoretical Models of the Dying Process | |
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Do We Die in Stages? | |
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A Developmental Coping Model of the Dying Process | |
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The Dying Person's Own Reality as the Model | |
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A Multiple Perspective Approach | |
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Your Deathbed Scene | |
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Improving End-of-Life Care | |
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Summary | |
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Hospice and Palliative Care | |
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Outside Mainstream Society | |
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Hospice: A Flowering from Ancient Roots | |
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Standards of Care for the Terminally Ill | |
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Hidden or Implicit Standards of Care | |
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Proposed Standards Recommended by the International Task Force | |
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Establishment of Hospice Programs in the United States | |
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The Hospice in Action | |
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Entering St. Christopher's | |
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Mother's Last Moments: A Daughter's Experience | |
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Dying from Two Worlds | |
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Adult Respite Care | |
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Hospice-Inspired Care for Children | |
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Hospice Care for People with AIDS | |
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Hospice Care on the International Scene | |
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Relief of Pain and Suffering | |
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Why Pain Must Be Controlled | |
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Other Symptoms and Problems | |
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Your Deathbed Scene, Revisited | |
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Hospice Access, Decision Making, and Challenges | |
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Dame Cicely Saunders' Reflections on Hospice | |
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Summary | |
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End of Life Issues and Decisions | |
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From Description to Decision Making | |
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Who Should Participate in End-of-Life Decisions? | |
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The Living Will and its Impact | |
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Right-to-Die Decisions That We Can Make | |
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From Living Will to Patient Self-Determination Act | |
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College Students' Attitudes Toward End-of-Life Issues | |
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Advance Medical Directives: What Should We Do? | |
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A Right Not to Die? The Cryonics Alternative | |
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Historical Background | |
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Rationale and Method | |
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Heads of Stone: A Radical New Development | |
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More Questions | |
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Organ Donation | |
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Funeral-Related Decisions | |
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A Perspective on End-of-Life Decisions | |
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Summary | |
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Suicide | |
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What Do the Statistics Tell Us? | |
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Suicide Patterns in the United States | |
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What About Suicide Attempts? | |
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The Human Side | |
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Four Problem Areas | |
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Youth Suicide | |
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Do Children Commit Suicide? | |
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Suicide Among Elderly Persons | |
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The Lethality of Suicide Attempts in Later Adult Years | |
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Preventing Suicide in Later Adult Years | |
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Suicide Among Ethnic and Racial Minorities | |
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Suicide Risk for War Combatants and Veterans | |
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High-Risk Situations for Suicide | |
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Gender and Suicide | |
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Balancing Individual and Cultural Influences on Suicide | |
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Some Cultural Meanings of Suicide | |
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Suicide as Sinful | |
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Suicide as Criminal | |
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Suicide as Weakness or Madness | |
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Suicide as "The Great Death" | |
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Suicide as a Rational Alternative | |
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A Powerful Sociological Theory of Suicide | |
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The Importance of Social Integration | |
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Four Types of Suicide | |
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Some Individual Meanings of Suicide | |
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Suicide for Reunion | |
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Suicide for Rest and Refuge | |
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Suicide for Revenge | |
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Suicide as the Penalty for Failure | |
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Suicide as a Mistake | |
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A Psychoanalytical Approach to Suicide | |
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The Descent Toward Suicide | |
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Facts, Myths, and Guidelines | |
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Popular Myths about Suicide | |
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Suicide Prevention | |
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Individual Guidelines to Suicide Prevention | |
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Systematic Approaches to Suicide Prevention | |
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Three Emerging Challenges | |
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Summary | |
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Violent Death: Murder, Terrorism, Genocide, Disaster, and Accident | |
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Murder | |
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Murder: The Statistical Picture | |
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Patterns of Murder in the United States | |
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Young Men with Guns | |
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School Shootings | |
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Mass and Serial Killers: Who Are They and Why Do They Do It? | |
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Political Murder: Assassination in the United States | |
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Terrorism | |
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Terrorism in History | |
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Twentieth Century Terrorism and Genocide | |
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Twenty-First Century Terrorism and Genocide | |
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World Trade Center Attacks | |
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Immediate Responses to the Loss and Trauma | |
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Later Responses | |
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The Darfur Genocide | |
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Accident and Disaster | |
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Accidents | |
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Natural Disasters | |
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Summary | |
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Euthanasia, Assisted Death, Abortion, and the Right to Die | |
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"I Swear by Apollo the Physician": What Happened to the Hippocratic Oath? | |
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Key Terms and Concepts | |
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Nazi "Euthanasia" | |
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The Black Stork | |
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The Ventilator and the Slippery Slope | |
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Our Changing Attitudes Toward A Right to Die | |
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The Right-to-Die Dilemma: Case Examples | |
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The Ethics of Withdrawing Treatment: The Landmark Quinlan Case | |
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"It's over, Debbie": Compassion or Murder? | |
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An Arrow Through the Physician's Armor | |
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A Supreme Court Ruling: The Nancy Cruzan Case | |
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Terri Schiavo: Who Decides? | |
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The Ordeal Begins | |
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Comments I | |
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The Public Controversy | |
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Comments II | |
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Dr. Kevorkian and the Assisted-Suicide Movement | |
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Assisted Death in the Kevorkian Manner | |
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Kevorkian's Agenda | |
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Kevorkian's Method | |
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Evaluating Kevorkian's Approach | |
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The Netherlands: A Social Experiment Watched Closely by the World | |
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Australia: Yes, and Then No | |
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Assisted Death in the United States | |
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Compassion and Choices | |
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The Oregon Death Dignity Act | |
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Abortion | |
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Basic Facts about Abortion | |
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Difficult Issues and Questions | |
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Summary | |
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Death in the World of Childhood | |
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Respecting the Child's Concern and Curiosity | |
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Adult Assumptions About Children and Death | |
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Children Do Think About Death | |
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Early Experiences with Death in Childhood | |
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Death in the Songs and Games of Childhood | |
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Research and Clinical Evidence | |
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Research Case Histories | |
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Reflections and Questions | |
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Concepts of Death: Developing Through Experience | |
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"Auntie Death's" Pioneering Study | |
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Evaluating Nagy's Contributions | |
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Are Concepts of Death Related to Cognitive Level, Gender, and Social Class? | |
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Does Anxiety Influence Children's Thoughts About Death? | |
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Cultural Influences on Children's Concepts of Death | |
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Do Imaginary Friends Die? | |
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How do Children Cope with Bereavement? | |
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A Death in the Family: Effects on the Child | |
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Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Following a Violent Death | |
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Long-Term Effects of Childhood Bereavement | |
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Helping Children Cope with Bereavement | |
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The Dying Child | |
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Care of the Dying Child | |
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Siblings of the Dying Child | |
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The Stress of Working with Dying Children | |
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Sharing the Child's Death Concerns: A Few Guidelines | |
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The "Right" to Decide: Should the Child's Voice Be Heard? | |
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Summary | |
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Bereavement, Grief, and Mourning | |
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Some Responses to Loss | |
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Defining Our Terms: Bereavement, Grief, Mourning | |
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Bereavement: An Objective Fact | |
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Grief: A Painful Response | |
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Mourning: A Signal of Distress | |
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Theoretical Perspectives on Grief | |
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Types of Grief | |
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Normal and Complicated Grief | |
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Anticipatory Grief | |
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Resolved and Unresolved Grief | |
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Hidden and Disenfranchised Grief | |
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Theories of Grief | |
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The Grief-Work Theory | |
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Other Theoretical Approaches to Understanding Grief | |
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How Do People Recover from Grief? | |
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When a Husband or Wife Dies | |
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The Family That Has Lost a Child | |
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Bereavement in Later Life | |
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Sorrow upon Sorrow, Loss upon Loss | |
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Are Bereaved People at Higher Risk for Death? | |
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Differential Mortality Risk: The Statistical Pattern | |
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Who is Most at Risk? | |
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What are the Leading Causes of Death Among the Bereaved? | |
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How Well do We Support the Bereaved? | |
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American Society's Discomfort with Grief and Mourning | |
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Meaningful Help for Bereaved People | |
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Widow to Widow: The Phyllis Silverman Interview | |
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Helpful and Unhelpful Responses to the Bereaved Person | |
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Professional Help: When Is It Needed? | |
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Widows in Third World Nations | |
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Summary | |
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The Funeral Process | |
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A Sampler of Responses to The Dead | |
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What do Funerals Mean to Us? | |
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From Dead Body to Living Memory: A Process Approach | |
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Common Elements of the Funeral Process | |
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The Funeral Service | |
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Memorializing the Deceased | |
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Getting on with Life | |
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Making Death "Legal" | |
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Establishing the Facts of Death | |
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What Does the Funeral Process Accomplish? | |
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When Great People Die | |
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Balancing the Claims of the Living and the Dead | |
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Memories of Our People: Cemeteries in the United States | |
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The Neighborhood Cemetery | |
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Ethnic Cemeteries in the United States | |
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The Place of the Dead in Society: Yesterday and Today | |
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When are the Dead Important to the Living? | |
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American Memory and the Casualties of War and Terrorism | |
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Who "Owns" Human Remains? | |
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"You Were the Best Dog Ever": The Pet Cemetery | |
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The Funeral Director's Perspective | |
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Improving the Funeral Process | |
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Alternative Funerals, The Memorial Society Option | |
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Green Funerals | |
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Virtual Memorials | |
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Spontaneous Memorialization in Response to Violent Death | |
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Integrity and Abuse in the Funeral and Memorial Process | |
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Summary | |
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Do We Survive Death? | |
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Concept of Survival in Historical Perspective | |
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Key Points | |
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The Journey of the Dead | |
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Heavens and Hells | |
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The Desert Religions and Their One God | |
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Jewish Survival Belief in the Ancient World | |
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Heaven and Hell for Christians | |
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Islamic Paradise and Jahannam | |
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Science Rocks the Boat | |
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What Other People Believe | |
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Can Survival Be Proved? | |
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Near-Death Experiences: Evidence for Survival? | |
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Evidence Favoring the NDE as Proof of Survival | |
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Biomedical Attempts to Verify NDE Phenomena | |
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Eliminating other Explanations | |
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The Case Against the NDE as Proof of Survival | |
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Mystical, Depersonalization, and Hyperalertness Responses to Crisis | |
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Why Do People Not Have NDEs? An Alternative Explanation | |
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Are NDEs Hallucinations? | |
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NDEs as Exercises in Religious Imagination? | |
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What has been Learned from NDERs? | |
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The Dead as Evidence for Survival | |
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Deathbed Escorts: Safe Conduct to the Other World | |
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Communicating with the Dead: The Medium and the Channeler | |
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When Spiritism Was in Flower | |
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Channeling and Past Life Regression | |
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Ghosts | |
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The Ghost Dance: A Peaceful Vision Becomes a Tragedy | |
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Reincarnation | |
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Should We Survive Death? | |
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But What Kind of Survival? | |
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Assisted and Symbolic Survival | |
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Symbolic Immortality | |
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Assisted Immortality | |
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The Suicide-Survival Connection | |
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Summary | |
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How Can We Help? Caregiving and death education | |
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"Compassionate Fatigue": Burnout and the Health Care Provider | |
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Caregivers in Death-Salient Situations | |
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Staff Burnout: What Effects on Patients? | |
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How Can We Protect Ourselves from Burnout? | |
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Death Educators and Counselors: The "Border Patrol" | |
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Death Education in Historical Perspective | |
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From Ancient Times | |
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The Medieval Heritage | |
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Death Education and Counseling: The Current Scene | |
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SimMan: An Interview with Beatrice Kastenbaum | |
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Counseling and the Counselors | |
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Characteristics of Professionals in the Death System | |
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Counseling and Psychotherapy | |
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How We all Can Help | |
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Summary | |
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Good Life, Good Death? Trying to make sense of it all | |
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Three Paths to Death | |
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A Father Dies: A Mission Begins | |
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A Shift in the Meaning of Life and Death? | |
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Horrendous Death | |
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The Golden Rule Revisited | |
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Are We Live or on Tape? The Life-and-Death Challenges of Virtual Reality | |
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Utopia: A Better Death in a Better Place? | |
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Death in Utopia | |
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A Better Death in a Better Place? | |
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"The Good Death": Fantasy or Reality? | |
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Extinction: Death of Life or Death of Death? | |
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St. Paul's Cathedral, 1623 | |
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The Death of Species | |
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From Good Life to Good Death: A Personal Statement | |
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Summary | |
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Index | |