Yi-Ling Tsai
Department of Psychiatry, Penghu hospital,Ministry of health and welfare
Yaw-Sheng Lin
Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University
The purpose of this study was to explore the psychological experiences of a patient with terminal cancer, called P1, a fifty-nine year old male subject in a palliative care medical unit in southern Taiwan. Through accompaniment and nine times interviews, personal narratives were generated and analyzed using an existential-phenomenological approach. Three structural themes emerged through data interpretation: Temporality and situated structure, death anxiety, and passive synthesis state near the end of life. P1’s narrative through description and inscription illustrates the enlightenment at the point of death in terminal illness experiences and the metaphysical interpretations of this phenomenological process are discussed.
Keywords: death anxiety, end of life, temporality, terminal illness