Terminal Care and Religious Counseling in an East Asian Context

• 발행기관: 한국노년학회
• 저자명: Carl Becker
• 간행물 정보: 『한국노년학』제21권 1호, 211~238쪽, 전체 27쪽
• 주제분류: 사회과학 > 사회복지학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2001.03.30

영문 초록

From time immemorial, East Asians have wanted to die at home, but their thorough importation of Western socialized medicine has rendered that impossible; now they are fated to die in hospitals. Asia's aging society is deeply in need, not only of new hospice facilities, but of caregivers capable of meeting their patients' psychological needs. This presentation introduces the basics of terminal care, including points essential for successful operation. It specifically explains the kinds of counseling methods, attitudes, and activities that counselors can use to bring meaning to terminal patients' last days. To remove patients' pain, it recommends not only drug, but meditation; to diminish fear of death, counselors can help patients unearth and affirm hopes of a future life from their subconscious. Next we introduce the QOD (Quality of Death) survey as a measure to assure greater satisfaction of both terminal patients and their families. Religious counseling is also essential for the bereaved. If properly recorded, it can prove not only psychologically effective but also economically viable. Finally, the importamce of religious volunteers is emphasized, not only for the patients' benefit, but indeed to revitalize the volunteers' religious faith as well. It is hoped that these various aspects of counseling can contribute to a society where Asian people can spend their last days in the ways they feel most befitting themselves. Prof. Carl B. Becker, Ph.D., D.Litt. (hon.) is a Japanologist and philosopher of religious ethics, known for researching near-death experiences and religious experience in the Far East. Educated at University of Chicago Lab School (to 1967), Principia College (B.A. Philosophy and Religion, 1971), East-West Center, University of Hawaii (M.A. Buddhist Philosophy, 1973; Ph.D. Comparative Philosophy, 1981). From 1981 to 1983, he taught Asian Philosophy at Southern Illinois University, winning campus awards, and the Robert Ashby Award for his articles researching Out-of-Body Experiences. In the Spring of 1983, invited to a Fulbright lectureship at Osaka University, teaching American Thought until 1985, and Japanese Studies until 1986, when he relocated to the University of Hawaii's Curriculum Research and Development Group. In 1988, Becker returned to Japan's Tsukuba University Institute of Philosophy, and again in 1992 to accept a tenured professorship at Kyoto University. Beckers articles are reprinted in: Nagata & Ikemi's Terminal Care in Japan (1984), Bruce Greyson's The Near-Death Experience (1985), Charles Fu's Movements and Issues in World Religions (1987), Larry Samovar's Intercultural Communication, a Reader (1988), and Paul Badham/Arthur Berger's Perspectives on Death and Dying, (1989). Beckers 1983 biography, Japan, My Teacher, My Love, was adopted as a textbook in Japanese colleges, followed by his more academic studies of Christianity: History and Philosonhy, After All: Issues of Life and Death, Danger in Daily Life, Communication, East and West (Eihosha Publishers). English books include Paranormal Experience and Survival of Death (SUNY, 1992), Breaking the Circle: Buddhist Views of Death (SIUC, 1993), At the Border of Death: A Japanese Near-Death Experience (Yomiuri, 1993), and Asian and Jungian Views of Ethics, (Greenwood, 2000). Backer is a founding member of the Japan English Forensics Association, International Association for Near-Death Studies, Mind-Body Research Assn., International Society for Life Information Science, and consultant to Mortality Journal and Journal of Near-Death Studies. His recent work promotes Thanatology and Death Education in Japan. Backer is a published amateur photographer, enjoys cycling and trekking, and lives in the mountains north of Kyoto.

목차

Abstract

Ⅰ. The Present Crisis in Terminal Care

Ⅱ. Fears of the Dying: Incompleteness

Ⅲ. Fears of the Dying: Pain

Ⅳ. Fears of the Dying: Death and the Hereafter

Ⅴ. Hospices and Quality of Death

Ⅵ. Religion, Religious Studies, and Helping People Facing Death

Ⅶ. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

References