In existential psychology, death is not regarded simply as an isolated event at the end of life, but as a permanent presence that reverberates through our whole existence. Yalom argues that death anxiety is the “primary anxiety”, on the basis of which defences and symptoms are built in an attempt to protect us from our painful common fate.
For many people, death is not an abstract concept but a living memory. The loss of someone we love leaves behind traces that haunt us: a sudden sensitivity to sounds, an aversion to particular foods, or an irrational avoidance of anything carrying the scent of that loss. These phobias are the “disguises” of death anxiety.
Fears that at first glance we might not recognise as directly related to our mortality may also be connected with it. Many symptoms — depression, anxiety, phobias — are mobilised by the fear of death or intensified by the terror of non-being.
It is interesting that even preoccupations with sexual experiences, or an excessive sexuality, can be used as an antidote to death and decay. After the loss of someone close, or the diagnosis of a serious illness, some people show a sudden, almost compulsive sexual arousal. This is a biological answer to emptiness and to the fear of non-being. If death is the end of life, at least as we know it, then sex is the ultimate affirmation of life, of drive and of connection. It is the biological answer to decay. As Yalom writes, feeling your body pulsing with pleasure is the strongest proof that you are not yet dead.
Every person fears death in their own way, and so creates their own symptoms as an expression of that fear. For some it is clearer and more visible; for others more subterranean and hidden behind habits, avoidances, preferences or phobias. So some people become obsessed with work and productivity. This is their way of feeling alive, all-powerful and of value. The barrage of obligations gives them the illusion of control and strength, since constant activity covers the pause they find dangerous — the pause that can exist in withdrawal and rest, bringing a sense of inaction and non-being. The thought behind this defence is usually: “If I am constantly moving and producing, death will not be able to catch up with me.”
Similarly, an obsession with the body and excessive preoccupation with diet, exercise or medical tests can conceal a fear of death displaced onto a field where we feel we can exert “control”.
Although the reality of death destroys us, the idea of it can set us free. For Yalom, awareness of death works as an “awakening experience”. When we stop spending energy on repressing the inevitable, that energy returns to life. It pushes us to re-evaluate our priorities and gives us the courage to change a life that does not express us. It is no accident that after a loss, many people find the strength to make changes that had previously seemed unthinkable.
Perhaps this is why many anxieties and fears come to us just before we sleep, when the lights go out. Sleep is in a way a symbolic death, a temporary surrender of control. Children sense this instinctively, and that is why they seek reassurance and the presence of a parent — a confirmation that the world (and they themselves) will go on existing. In Greek mythology, Death and Sleep were twin brothers, children of Night and Erebus. The ancient Greeks saw sleep as a small death, a temporary absence from the world of the living — a perspective that helped them observe and philosophise about their mortality in a more symbolic way.
Existential psychotherapy and Gestalt psychotherapy do not try simply to relieve isolated symptoms. The aim, rather, is to help clients see the fear hiding underneath. Accepting the inevitable reduces the need for paradoxical defences and allows us to live without fighting what cannot be fought. As Yalom puts it: “the less well one has lived one’s life, the more one fears death.”
Coming to terms with the end of the world as we know it begins with contact with the “small deaths” that exist everywhere in our lives. When, for example, we deprive a child of the chance to grieve the loss of a pet, or even of a beloved object, by offering distractions so that they “forget”, we take away from them a precious existential exercise. Recognising and staying in contact with sadness and with all the feelings contained in loss is the only road that builds real resilience. Instead of “protecting” children from grief, we should stand beside them, teaching them how to stand whole in the face of loss rather than how to avoid it.
References:
Yalom, I. D. (2008). Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
