Psychological Defenses Against Death Anxiety: Integrating Terror Management Theory and Firestone's Separation Theory

The author attempts to integrate Terror Management Theory (TMT) and R. W. Firestone's Separation Theory (1984 Firestone , R. W. ( 1984 ). A concept of the primary fantasy bond: A developmental perspective . Psychotherapy , 21 , 218 – 225 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] 1994 Firestone , R. W. (1994). Psychological defenses against death. In R. A. Neimeyer (Ed.), Death anxiety handbook (pp. 217–241). Washington , DC : Taylor Francis. [Google Scholar]). Both theories emphasize defense against death anxiety as a key human motive. Whereas TMT focuses extensively on self-esteem and cultural worldview, Firestone posited additional defenses such as gene survival, self-nourishing behaviors, addictive couple bonds, and adopting an anti-sexual approach to life. TMT offers a strong base of experimentally validated ideas and the experimental paradigms to test the broad array of defenses enumerated in Firestone's Separation Theory. Therefore, an integration of the two theories would be beneficial to a fuller understanding of psychological defenses against death anxiety.