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Death and dying

We collect together archive links on the psychology of death, dying, loss, near-death, bereavement and grief.

20 March 2020

We've trawled through years of our archive to bring together content on death from The Psychologist and our Research Digest.

Bereavement and grief
A collection of articles on bereavement and grief from The Psychologist and Research Digest. Do check that collection out, because generally here we're sticking with death and dying rather than the aftermath…

Episode 32 of our podcast: How to face grief

Remaining with death
Khyati Tripathi with a personal journey into death studies

Can memento mori help set us free? Rachel Menzies on normalising talk about death.

'People are having a very different experience of death…' during the pandemic. See also Nick Little on loss, love and living during Covid.

Rebecca Huscroft is a psychologist helping people plan for death

Beauty and the beast
An exclusive extract from 'With the End in Mind: Dying, death and wisdom in an age of denial' by Kathryn Mannix

Life and death at the limits
Roger Luckhurst on ‘zombie psychology’

A matter of life and death
Celia Kitzinger and Sue Wilkinson argue there’s a role for psychologists in helping people with their Advance Decisions, with editor Jon Sutton's own Advance Decision
… And a response from Fenja V. Ziegler and Richard J. Tunney

Ethics: Can you help me get to Dignitas?
Discussion and debate on an ethical dilemma

A discourse around death
Ella Rhodes reports from a symposium at the Society's Annual Conference on end-of-life care

Experiencing death to improve life
Jelena Martinovic on near-death experiences and psychology in the 1960s and 70s

'I asked Laura what she thought happened after death…'

Communication from the condemned
Janelle Ward studies the last statements from those on death row 

Heading for an early grave?
Anna C. Phillips and Douglas Carroll on stress, health and death 

From the archives: Suicide
Links to articles from The Psychologist and Research Digest on suicide

Running to catch the sun
We are all heading for the grave in an indifferent universe. How do we cope with such existential concerns? Dan Jones investigates 

Until death do us part
Louise Dixon and Nicola Graham-Kevan look at the role psychology can take in preventing intimate partner homicide

Watching death
Susan Blackmore for the Research Digest with her take on ‘the most important psychology experiment never done’

Plus see articles on death digested on our Research Digest:

Is death still frightening if you believe the self is an illusion? An astonishing study of Tibetan Buddhists – Christian Jarrett
Detectives on the toll of investigating child deaths: it only gets harder – Alex Fradera
Low self-esteem and scared of death? Try hugging a teddy – Christian Jarrett
Thoughts of death increase the appeal of Intelligent Design – Christian Jarrett
When death is an aphrodisiac – Christian Jarrett
How thoughts of death turn to joy – Christian Jarrett
What makes for a 'meaningful death' in fiction? - Emily Reynolds
Creative pursuits may assuage our fear of death - Emma Young

Search The Psychologist archive for more on death and other topics…