ABSTRACT
The nature and intensity of the dying person’s positive transference is indeed another key feature which distinguishes thanatological work from ordinary psychotherapy. Depending upon the circumstances, the clinical thanatologist will, during these weeks or days or hours, witness another human being’s down-hill course toward death. A person who systematically attempts to help a dying individual achieve a psychologically comfortable death — given the dire, unnegotiable circumstances of the situation — is acting in a special role. The nature and intensity of the dying person’s positive transference is indeed another key feature which distinguishes thanatological work from ordinary psychotherapy. In the dying situation, an irrevocable series of changes, from what has been to what may be, takes place along the dimension we call time. Typically, dying persons become sicker, bed-ridden, tired and weak, and begin to take on the signs of approaching death.
