Illness makes us uncomfortable. No matter how sensitive we are, no matter how well we listen to others, and no matter how much illness has touched our lives, bodily limitations remind us of our vulnerability.
When people we love suffer, it can make us feel helpless–we are unable to take away their worry, physical pain, and the things they may have to go through (such as chemotherapy) in order to alleviate their disease.It also goes without saying that illness reminds us of death. Death is not something most of us like to think about. Earnest Becker’s 1973 Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Denial of Death, points out that one way we deny death is to focus on the desire to be a hero. Being a hero, in this context, refers not only to our own basic need to feel powerful and the biological desire to preserve ourselves, but also to the power to cheat death. Ancient ideas of heroes support this argument: “The hero was the man who could go into the spirit world, the world of the dead, and return alive.” Accomplishing something and surviving death was the link to power.
One way some of us deny death is to focus on success, gratification, love, sex, money, and all the things that make us feel powerful and in control. It is as if we are saying to ourselves, “Only the weak can die. If I can be powerful, than I can live forever.” Though many of us spend a lot of time trying to develop power and control, we are often reminded of our limitations. People we love die. Friends and relatives get sick and we cannot save them.
Death is also symbolic of our own limits in general. It reminds us that our accomplishments and achievements are temporary. Though we might achieve success in this lifetime, the painful reality is that there is a shelf life on our productivity. No matter what we possess, nothing is permanent. Understandably, this makes us quite anxious.
In an attempt to not depress you further, let me point out that when we can talk about illness and death it allows us to integrate something that we can’t really escape anyway.
When people we care about are sick, being able to manage our anxieties about bodily vulnerability and death allows us to provide support. Talking about illness is also good practice; as we age illness becomes a more frequent topic of conversation.
Perhaps the most important reason for us to overcome difficulties in talking about illness is that it allows us to be connected to others. Human relationships and feeling close to others are important aspects of physical and mental health.
This post currently has
10 comments/trackbacks.
You can read the comments or leave your own thoughts.
From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (August 1, 2011)
Laurel Wiig, Ph.D. (August 1, 2011)
quippd Psychology (August 1, 2011)
Mental Health Social (August 1, 2011)
Cathleen Mackay (August 1, 2011)
From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (August 1, 2011)
From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (August 2, 2011)
Last reviewed: 31 Jul 2011
Copyright © 1992-2012 Psych Central. All rights reserved.
Site last updated: 16 May 2012
|
