ABSTRACT
Working with people who are dying is always salutary: it puts into perspective other worries, leading to more tolerance of these difficulties. However, those working with the dying, those who face the death of one they love, and those who survive a life-threatening illness, find that they gain insight into parts of their psyche that were inaccessible. That they can emerge strengthened, 'a sadder and a wiser man' as Coleridge put it in The Ancient Mariner, aware of their own vulnerability and mortality, and therefore their own humanity. There is the danger of a frightening or lonely experience, or the possibility of a turning-point, leading to decisive change and development, for both the dying and the carers. Within the concept of wholeness there is without doubt a place for death alongside life. A crisis in both nuances is what the patient facing death experiences, and is something those close to the patient are also capable of going through.
