Thanatology is not the term that we often use in our conversations, however, it is one of the few terms that become essential to know or understand when someone is on the edge of dying or dealing with a near-death situation. Even though everybody knows that death is the ending stage of life and everybody in this world has to face death as the end of their journey, it is still difficult to deal with the pain of losing someone.
While some deaths are accidental and sudden and people don’t get time to help their loved ones in their end-of-life journey, thanatology is a way that people can use as a tool to help their loved ones alleviate their pain who are experiencing an end-of-life journey such as the last stages of diseases.
Suppose our loved ones are facing a major disease or health issue. In that case, we try to provide them with the best medical treatments to enhance the possibility of recovering, and palliative care is the specialized treatment doctors use in an incredibly critical situation to save the lives of people as long as possible.
However, during this process, even though the bystanders feel emotional pain, the patient is the one who has to deal with physical, emotional, and mental pain during palliative care. At this time, the role of a thanatologist becomes more prominent.
So, what does a Thanatologist do?
When people are under palliative care, they need to go through many sophisticated treatments that can lead to severe pain during or after the treatments. Not only the pain but also the intensity and regularity of harsh treatments often make a patient feel low, a thanatologist is a person who helps people in their end-of-life care, where they don’t actually provide medical treatments but help patients in improving their mental and emotional confidence, however, that doesn’t imply that physical pain will vanish. No! it’s just that thanatology will motivate a person to boost confidence, hold on to the hope of recovering, and fight with negative thoughts that rattle in the mind.
Also, not only the patients, thanatologists help people suffer their loss who have lost their loved ones and assist in dealing with the grief and mourning process. It can also be considered as a psychiatrist’s counseling that people have to look for to gain positive insights into life and deal with their losses and regrets after bereavement.
Extent of Thanatology
Thanatology is a research-based study that discusses a range of aspects associated with death and dying care. Even though mentioned below are several areas where thanatology serves well, it’s not limited to it.
- It includes psychological aspects of dying, where they help people deal with the mental and emotional processes that a person has to go through during their end-of-life journey.
- Another part is associated with the people who have been left behind, where it helps deal people with grief and bereavement.
- Not only on people, this study focuses on the influences and impacts of cultural practices around death.
- Sometimes, it is also associated with ethical and legal issues and it analyzes the aspects of ethical dilemmas that a person can have who is in palliative care.
How Does a Thanatologist Help People in Palliative Care?
There are several types of Thanatologists such as Medical ethicists, Pastoral thanatologists, Biological thanatologists, and Music thanatologists, thanatologists who help people in end-of-life care are Psychological thanatologists and Death Doulas.
Psychological thanatologists work more like counselors and therapists who help people who are dealing with their own death or someone who is mourning for their loved one whereas Death Doulas do not belong to the medical background but assist people in palliative care and their family members emotionally and psychologically.
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Psychological thanatologists get into the depth of the health issues of patients that are associated with their end-life journey and try to help them in all psychologically possible ways to improve their mental strength and provide them with an emotional balance that may get disturbed due to the unbearable suffering.
The Role of Thanatology in Palliative and End-of-Life Care
Since thanatology, palliative care, and end-of-life care are the terms associated with death and dying, the role of all these terms is significantly different from each other.
Thanatology is the study of aspects associated with death and dying in which very few medical practices are involved as it serves to provide non-medical support for grief, mourning, palliative care, and end-of-life care to the patients and their family members as well.
People often confuse the terms palliative care and end-of-life care as the same, however, the case is a bit different. To understand the role of thanatology in palliative care, firstly it’s important to clear the concept of palliative care and end-of-life care.
Palliative care is given to patients as specialized treatments that can help them live as long as possible and it can help them survive for months to years, which is not an illustration of end-of-life care as end-of-life care is the one that is given to patients who are on the death bed or have just a few days or weeks left.
So, both care have significant impacts on the health of an individual, so the role of thanatology will vary in both.
Psychological therapists get enough time to analyze the death consequences or the stress and thoughts related to the person’s current condition who is in palliative care, so they can try their ways to provide them with emotional and mental support to combat their health issues and help get rid of negative thoughts and alleviate pain.
Further, many thanatologists believe the 5 stages of grief given by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, however, they also consider the facts that these stages include denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance have no specific order or time limit. Nevertheless, acceptance is the final stage, which slightly helps you accept your faith without stress and hesitations with positivity. So, instead of thinking about the upcoming day of dying, people often start to think about living peacefully and spending their last moments with their family members in a memorable way.
However, unfortunately, there are people who die in poverty and do not get the care they deserve whether palliative or end-of-life. So, if there are campaigns run by the government, which can also issue funds, thanatology assistance, and palliative care can be provided on a larger scale, which will not only be good for suffering people but for the country as well.
Last Updated on by Icy Tales Team