On 9 Mar 2007 at 17:37, Sandy Price wrote:
> It is my understanding that her position in this interview was one she
> developed later in life after some religious experiences. I could not
> find her obituary in the NY Times but Wikipedia, for what it's worth,
> confirms that she did change over time and that initially she was upset
> at how the dying were treated.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_K%C3%BCbler-Ross
When Jim Guinee said this:
> In order to properly challenge, one must have enough knowledge of the
> issues in the first place. Otherwise a lot of time is wasted on
> ignorance"...
I wasn't sure whether he was calling me ignorant or not, but I thought it
likely, given Jim's penchant for the polarizing opinion. And if he did,
in a way he was right. I never felt it was worth my time to dabble in
Kubler-Ross given the obviously unscientific nature of her work. But one
of the advantages of taking part in a debate like this is that you become
curious to know more about your subject.
Sandy's Wikipedia reference above wasn't too forthcoming, but it led me
to another, and then I hit the jackpot. Ron Rosenbaum has an article
published in _Slate_ dated September 23, 2004 ("Dead Like Her: How
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross went around the bend"). It's an informative,
entertaining, and occasionally hilarious account of just how wacky this
woman was. You can get it at http://slate.msn.com/id/2107069/
There are too many fine paragraphs to know which ones to choose for
quoting. But try these, which are relevant to my posts:
"She began identifying herself as a "scientist" [note the scare quotes--
SB] and took her accumulated anecdotal experience and declared that the
dying process (and the grieving process, too) had those famous five
stages. Staging death had a remarkable appeal and gave an illusion of
control over the uncontrollable. She became a saintly icon, the Queen of
Death".
"But then, quietly, in the late '70s, the Queen began to go around the
bend, began declaring there was no death...Death for Kubler-Ross became
just a kind of bonus "Sixth Stage", a kind of heavenly spa where one
could freshen up before cruising around among the living again".
"Whether or not Kubler-Ross is dead her alleged "science" of Death 'n'
Dying lives on in all its meretriciousness, rarely challenged any more".
"Until I looked into it I admit that I was one of the ones content to
accept on faith that Kubler-Ross' Five Stages of "Death 'n' Dying" was
founded on something more solid than Kubler-Ross' anecdotes" [not
afterwards, apparently--SB].
Of course, if one accepts the Five Stages merely on Kubler-Ross' say-so,
then one must also accept her sixth stage founded in the same way with
the same kind of support (that is, none). That's the stage that
Rosenbaum refers to as the idea of a "heavenly spa where one could
freshen up" and also as a "heavenly car mechanic vision". I would think
that to be consistent Jim would tell us that we would have to accept it
until it's challenged by appropriate evidence.
Good luck with that.
Stephen
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Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2600 College St.
Sherbrooke QC J1M 0C8
Canada
Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
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