: Reflection: healing, growing, and dying well
In her chapter “A broader view of healing” Margaret Coberly argues that dying can by a healing process of self-discovery. We find a similar claim coming from Mwalimu lmara in his essay “Dying as the Last Stage of Growth” which asserts: “the dying stage of our life can be experienced as the most profound growth event of our total life’s experience.” Ira Byock, another specialist in end of life care, reflects on the related possibility for achieving a meaningful death by “Dying Well”, the title of his book on end of life care. What all of these specialists share is a conception of “personhood” that is not limited to an individual’s bio or physiological life.
Drawing on Coberly, Imara, and Byock reflect on TWO of the following questions:
1) As described by Imara and Byock what is the “personhood” of a person? In other words, what makes you a person and how are these notions of personhood relevant to end of life care?
2) Using either Imara or Byock’s approach to personhood evaluate the life of Ivan llyich – how did his own sense of personhood as well as the perception others had of him – influence his experience of living and dying?
3) Given that this possibility for achieving “healing” , “growth”, or “wellness” at the end of life is one broadly shared by Coberly, Imara, and Byock, how would any one of these authors interpret the death of Iavn llyich, i.e., was there any evidence of healing, growth or wellness?
Book information
1. Ira Byock, M.D., Dying Well
2. Margaret Coberly’s chapter taken from Sacred Passage entitled, ?A Broader View of
Healing?
3. Mwalimu Imara’s essay ?Dying as the Last Stage of Growth? in book “Death: The Final Stage of Growth”
4. Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich
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no work cited needed but give the credt in text “…………” (Imara)
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