Addressing the Psychospiritual Distress of Death as Reality: A Transpersonal Approach

Many traditional Western psychologists fail to recognize spirituality and transcendental needs as intrinsic aspects of human nature and therefore may not be meeting the needs of terminally ill people or those in the process of confronting their own mortality. This article presents a model of transpersonal intervention appropriate for use by social work clinicians with anyone who is in the process of confronting his or her own mortality. It is based on the underlying assumptions that an individual has a level of transpersonal development with its related dimensions of spiritual awareness and personal death perspective and that the degree of interrelatedness of these two dimensions has a direct impact on the psychosocial distress he or she experiences when confronted with death.