Well-being and the anxiety about the awareness of limited time people have remaining

The central threat to well-being as people age, their increasing awareness of their mortality, is described, along with a related source of distress, the uncertainty they experience in being unable to predict when and how this threat will be manifested. The chapter reviews the ways that people typically cope with their mortality fears and mentions such practices as creating a storyline about what is to come, using an established belief system to replace the “unknowns” with a “known”. Suggestions are also presented as to how clinicians can assist people in coping with their fear and how they can use the precious and diminishing resource of time to facilitate pleasure and a sense of purpose.