ABSTRACT
An example of medical discourse, which has proved a popular best seller, is NULAND’s How We Die, in which he (as a medical doctor) outlines the bodily processes involved in death from a variety of major conditions, including heart disease, cancer, AIDS, and so on. The book satisfies curiosity about what it might be like to die at the physical and psychological levels. KÜBLER-ROSS, on the other hand, in her bestselling book on dying, is largely concerned with psychological processes as death approaches. In this book she outlines her famous “stage theory” of dying, whereby people who learn of their terminal illness pass though a series of responses to this, involving an initial numbness or shock, and then stages of depression, denial and/or bargaining, until some reach final acceptance. This depiction of dying exerted enormous influence over health care practitioners who were concerned to humanize the experience, but has been criticized on several grounds, not least of which is the view that “denial” may be regarded by some as a positive way to approach death. The ideas of Kübler-Ross are somewhat culture-bound in this respect.
