ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the interconnection of love and death from a philosophical, existential, and person-centred perspective, its relevance for therapy, and the necessity to accept one's finiteness. Love in its various manifestations is ubiquitous in both the dialogues in therapy and the theory of psychotherapy, in person-centred therapy particularly, as "unconditional positive regard". From a person-centred view, love is unconditional, as is death. Love is the only reality that can rival death. The posture of love is "presence", the comprehensive attitude of encountering a person as a person, carefully described by C. R. Rogers in its dimension of authenticity, unconditional positive regard, and empathy. Between "memento mori" and "carpe diem", there is a wide range of thanatologies, of philosophies about death. The experience of such love is the only existential given that can take death on. Death is the contradiction of the "exception rule", that which says that the exception proves the rule.
