ABSTRACT
People have thought about life and death since Neanderthal times. The fact that “Living with Death’ was a cover story of Newsweek did a feature story on “A Better Way of Dying” indicates the extent to which dying and death have become concerns to the lay public as well as the health professionals-a surprising development for a culture so often described as death denying. Feelings about death and the process of dying, like feelings about human sexuality, are very intimate concerns that most people are unwilling to share with those constrained by the scientific rigors of a tightly designed research protocol. Contextual as well as psychobiological factors may significantly influence the altered-state experiences of the dying patient. Two important and creative responses to the needs of dying patients and their families have been the development of the hospice concept and volunteer counseling programs modeled after the SHANTI Project in the San Francisco Bay area.
