ABSTRACT
The workshop group was divided into two experimental groups consisting of nineteen participants from two didactically-oriented workshops and thirty-two participants from three experientially-oriented programs. The primary difference between the didactic and experiential workshops lay in the methodology rather than the content of instruction. The death and dying workshop under study is part of a continuing education training program at a large southeastern medical center. The experiential workshop thus sought to provide participants with both a cognitive and emotional encounter with death while the didactic program emphasized only the former component. Controls who merely completed pre- and post- questionnaires displayed negative changes on scales measuring death anxiety and death fear, but didactic group members who were involved in a more intense, personal exposure to death-related topics demonstrated even greater negative changes. Individuals were relieved that others shared similar feelings about death and they felt supported in coming to terms with the personal meaning death had for them.
