ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the interaction between death-related issues and the framework of psychotherapy—the backbone, context, and most powerful influence on the patient's therapeutic experience. Death anxiety plays a significant role in how patients and therapists deal with the ground rules of therapy, and the vicissitudes of these canons are intimately connected to how each party deals with and adapts to death-related concerns. The status of the ground rules of therapy, including the framework offered by the therapist and that sought by the patient, are, as noted, intimately linked with issues of death anxiety. From the first moment a patient obtains the name of a therapist, the ground rules and framework of therapy are an active and critical force and factor. Patients with intense secured-frame anxieties resulting from notable death-related traumas will be inclined either to seek out a compromised therapist or to request modifications in the basic ground rules of the therapy.
