David K. Reynolds

Phenomenological Reality and Post-Death Contact

Individual realities of persons claiming to have had encounters with others known to be dead often mark the experiencing individual as pathological. Nonetheless, a survey of the available literature shows that the experience is common both in preliterate communities and among the recently bereaved; some authors have indicated that it is more common among contemporary Americans than is normally presumed. The present study queried 434 respondents in Greater Los Angeles, divided approximately equally among black, Japanese, Mexican and European origins, whether they had experienced such an encounter. Approximately 44 percent responded positively, with over 25 percent of these persons indicating that the dead person actually visited or was seen at a seance, while over 60 percent of the incidents involved a dream. A sufficiently large proportion of all population categories have experienced the presence of a dead person to make this phenomenon worthy of further investigation as being subjectively important.

Community attitudes toward suicide

The study, treatment, and efforts at prevention of suicide take place within a cultural milieu. To date, however, emphasis has been placed almost entirely on the self-destructive individual, his relevant health, and the mental health specialists. An ongoing study of death and bereavement in a cross-ethnic context in the Los Angeles area provided the means of exploring the attitudes of the general population regarding various aspects of suicide. The focus here is on the variables of age, sex, and education as they affect the views and experiences of 400 respondents on the subject of suicide.

The role of age in death attitudes.

Abstract One-hour interviews on death, dying, and bereavement were conducted with 434 adults in the greater Los Angeles area; respondents were approximately equally divided among four ethnic groups, among men and women, and among three age categories. Social class differences among ethnic groups were reduced but not fully eliminated through sampling techniques. The role of age was particularly important. The elderly not only had encountered significantly more death and attended significantly more funerals but they also thought more often about their own death and dying. Nonetheless, older persons were least likely to indicate fear of their own death. By and large, the young adults were at the opposite end of the continuum on most of the survey questions asked, while the middle-aged were intermediate. These results support other findings that older persons are more accepting of death in general and their own death in particular than are younger persons. Data on numerous other death-related issues are reported.

Naikan Therapy—an Experiential View

Naikan therapy is a form of directed meditation practised in Japan with reported positive effect on some neuroses, psychosomatic disorders and delinquency problems. It aims at reconstructing the clients view of his past in order to reshape his attitudes and behaviours in the present. Experiential research supplements the usual outsider participant observer perspective with personal experience in roles that exist within the setting—in this case the researcher became a patient and then a therapist as well as an outside observer.

Widows View Death: A Brief Research Note

This study is concerned with comparing death attitudes among widows and non-widows. Since the status of widowhood indicates the loss through death of a significant other, it was hypothesized that widows would respond differently than non-widows on a number of death-related interview questions. Attempts were made to match the age, ethnicity, and educational status between the participants. The interview included such topics as expectations and preferences concerning funerals, fear of death, belief in immortality, and feelings as to appropriate behavior for widows and widowers. In general, the role of widowhood seemed to have little or no effect upon death attitudes.

Work roles in death-releated occupations☆

Abstract More occupations than generally realized require the worker to have contact with the dying, the dead, and the bereaved. The opportunity for “leeway” and the desire to provide service are major motivating factors for persons in these positions. The death-related professional, often fatalistic in his own views of his own death, must live up to the social expectations for his role performance while simultaneously being a functioning human being who must encounter death at a personal level and a businessman who must earn his living from working with death-related concerns.

Changing Methods in Morita Psychotherapy

THERE has been a good deal of interest in the changing character of Western psychiatric theory and technique.~ 1 8910 The fifty-year history of Morita psychotherapy offers a useful non-Western example for comparison. This paper presents an outline of Morita’s classic method, a comparison of early and more recent implementations of his method, and a discussion of some factors that appear to have contributed to change in this uniquely Japanese form of psychotherapy. Descriptive accounts of this sort are the first step in understanding the external contributors to change in any psychotherapy.