scispace - formally typeset
Open AccessBook

The Denial of Death

Ernest Becker
TLDR
The Denial of Death as mentioned in this paper is an answer to the "why" of human existence, which sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.
Abstract
Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work,The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie -- man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.

read more

Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

Righteous violence: killing for God, country, freedom and justice

TL;DR: This paper used TMT to explore the psychological, social and cultural forces that lead diverse groups and individuals to endorse, promote, and enact violence against innocent individuals, and they found that many of the same psychological forces that led terrorists to their violent actions also lead to counter-terrorist policies that create massive collateral damage.
Dissertation

The possibility of a 'phenomenological' approach to researching how psychotherapists experience working with despair in a UK prison setting

Joanna Gee
TL;DR: This paper argued that "prison is a place, but it is also an idea, an idea that has engaged writers and thinkers...because it offers a way of expressing the concrete as well as the concrete:
Journal ArticleDOI

Existential Issues in Sexual Medicine: The Relation Between Death Anxiety and Hypersexuality.

TL;DR: Although certainly not all cases of hypersexuality are precipitated by a confrontation with mortality and death, there are cases in which sex is imbued with meaning as an antidote to the fear of death, and existential therapy is a form of treatment that could be particularly effective in many of these cases.
Journal ArticleDOI

The anorexic patient as a survivor: The denial of death and death themes in the literature on anorexia nervosa

TL;DR: In secondary anorexia nervosa, the patient is conceptualized as a "survivor by proxy" of the parent as discussed by the authors, and a close associative linking between eating, death, and other basic life functions, plays a central and not peripheral role in the dynamic etiology of the disorder.
Journal ArticleDOI

The constructive use of ghost imagery in childhood grief

TL;DR: The authors found that children between the ages of 2 and 5 years do not have a fully developed capacity to put thoughts into words, and caregivers often erroneously assume they are not grieving.
Related Papers (5)