ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the idea of death denial from a sociological perspective, drawing upon and furthering the themes of technology and self-expressiveness. It has been argued that the theme of American death denial has been overstated. Physicians, dying patients, and family members may relate to death through the psychically rooted response of denial. In many ways, Americans conspire to keep death in a deep freeze of silent avoidance. The organizing of modern death and dying within a medical-technical framework has precipitated the charge that American society is a death-denying society. The increased societal emphasis on the notion of death-with-dignity has also coincided with an increase in physician willingness to tell terminally-ill patients about their diagnosis. The fundamental intensity of humanity's fear of death has precipitated a natural human need to find ways to transcend death and deny mortality. The traditional patterns of human death reflected an intimacy of ongoing involvement between human living and human dying.
