Confrontation with inevitability of one’s death. The perspective of senior learners

• Authors: Muszyński Marcin , Wąsiński Arkadiusz , Fabiś Artur
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The paper is the first of three publications which will address the problem of existential concerns explored from the perspective of seniors. The common feature of these papers is the attempt to investigate this phenomenon be means of qualitative research conducted among seniors. We believe that seniors in their late adulthood or old age are more deeply aware of the approaching death, what motivates them to reflect on the fragile and finite nature of human existence and the meaning of their lives. As they face challenging thoughts and sense that these thoughts focus on the most fundamental existential problem, they try to respond to it and formulate individual solutions. This is very interesting for researchers because the reality studied is in this case recognized as it is being formed, in statu nascendi. The dynamics of this process is connected with the way seniors experience themselves as they cope with their existential concerns on daily basis. With every new experience, they may arrive at different conclusions or confirm that their present way of thinking and evaluating life is the right one. The purpose of presenting diverse research reflections in the papers is not to verify again an again the results obtained previously in other samples but rather to grasp the complex picture which shows the ways seniors approach life and death, understand their existential concerns and their importance in life as well as the mechanisms they use to buffer existential fear in different circumstances. The publications present different research strategies including analyses of materials obtained as short written statements, unstructured interviews and survey questionnaires. As part of theoretical introduction to the research problem, this papers presents reflections on the main aspects of finiteness of human existence, set in the interdisciplinary scientific discourse. A special emphasis in the discussion is put on the self-reflective context of confrontation with the anticipated, inevitable death in the light of the essence of human existence recognized as an autotelic value. The research section focuses on exploring how do seniors approach the phenomenon of transience of life and inevitability of death. The research material was obtained in the form of short statements written by seniors as answers to open ended questions. As a result of the analysis, a quite complex catalogue was created of responses of seniors to the inevitability of death - from acceptance of one’s own death to suppression of the death-related thoughts. The analysis also resulted in the typology of five approaches towards death, presented by the seniors. The names of these categories are, in our opinion, symbolic and include: stoic, worldview-based, existential, anxiety-based and avoidance approach.

Keywords

EN

existential concerns; human existence; transience of life; inevitability of death

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Akademii WSB
• Journal: EXLIBRIS Biblioteka Gerontologii Społecznej
• Year: 2020
• Issue: 1 (18) /2020 Old age - international perspective – theory and practice
• Pages: 25-37

Dates

published

2020

Contributors

author

Muszyński Marcin

• University of Lodz, Poland

author

Wąsiński Arkadiusz

• University of Lodz, Poland

author

Fabiś Artur

• Pedagogical University of Krakow, Poland

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Identifiers

DOI

10.24917/27199045.181.2