The Living among the Dead: A Phenomenological Study of Cemetery Workers’ Mental Health

The study aims to examine the way cemetery workers make sense of their experiences at cemeteries and what strategies they incorporate in dealing with the everyday deaths of people. Semi-structured interviews with three cemetery workers (N=3) were conducted to explore and understand these workers' intrapsychic and external experiences. The audio interviews were recorded and transcription was done to provide the verbatim for thick and rich description of the phenomena. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach was used to analyze the data. The analysis generated themes i.e., workplace problems, fear of death, spirituality, coping with fear, relating with the deceased, and uncanny religious and meaningful experiences. There were some over-arching negative emotional features like depression, anxiety, and fear observed in the participants. However, they seemed to use emotion focused strategies in a direct or indirect way to cope i.e., uncanny experiences that are meaningful, escape, support of colleagues, spirituality, and humor. The study concluded that while the cemetery workers incorporated religious coping to deal with their stressors, they were susceptible to mental health issues as they oscillated between anxious and depressive features, hence, requiring psychological assistance. The study encourages to understand how cemetery workers experience the everyday burying of the dead; whether they are desensitized towards their job, as commonly understood, or it is a continued battle for them, and if so, then attention should be drawn towards their need for psychological interventions.