When I Was Dying: Toward a Phenomenology of the Experience of Facing Death
Psychological Perspectives April 3, 2025 DOI: 10.1080/00332925.2025.2507503 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Philosophy of mind |
| Key points | Argues, through a first-person narrative of receiving a fatal diagnosis, that confronting untreatable illness and the limits of the medical system arouses intense emotion, and proposes that dying may open a novel psychic space that transcends the ego's narrow perspective and evokes awe and grandeur. |
Abstract
This paper explores the experience of receiving a fatal medical diagnosis. It is meant to shed light on a phenomenon that, for obvious reasons, rarely gets reported on. The narrative takes one through the business of navigating a flawed medical system in search of an accurate diagnosis—and finally accepting that one’s condition is dire and untreatable. It is about bumping up against this wall of our own mortality and the emotions that are aroused. It is also about a novel psychic space that perhaps may open up for some who are dying—one that transcends the ego’s necessarily narrow perspective and evokes wider feeling of awe and grandeur.