ABSTRACT
The words and symbols employed in any discussion of funeral rituals and practices may well evoke past experiences, media images, and/or previously formed judgments. The subject is emotionally imbued and objectivity may be clouded by subjective notions. As a director on the board of a mental health agency the author was attending a joint board and staff development workshop focused on establishing the organization's mission statement. Funeral directors assist grieving people to ritualize, and so to recognize and begin to reconcile, an individual's death. North American funeral practices have emerged to include a broad spectrum of activities which indicate specialization, cultural diversity, flexibility, and a focus on the individual, both the bereaved and the deceased. The funeral service profession in North America has some culpability in society's stereotyping of funeral directors and traditional funeral practices and its detachment from, and discontent with, the death experience.
