Death anxiety (psychology)

Death anxiety is the morbid, abnormal or persistent fear of one's own mortality. One definition of death anxiety is a "feeling of dread, apprehension or solicitude (anxiety) when one thinks of the process of dying, or ceasing to ‘be’". It is also referred to as thanatophobia (fear of death), and is distinguished from necrophobia, which is a specific fear of dead or dying persons and/or things (i.e. others who are dead or dying, not one's own death or dying). Lower ego integrity, more physical problems, and more psychological problems are predictive of higher levels of death anxiety in elderly people.

The thought of [our] destruction is like a light in the middle of the night that spreads its flames on the objects it will soon consume. We must get used to contemplating this light, since it announces nothing that has not been prepared by all that comes before; and since death is as natural as life, why should be so afraid of it?

Types

Robert Langs distinguishes three types of death anxiety:

Afraid to Die

Afraid to Die (からっ風野郎, Karakkaze Yarō) is a 1960 Japanese yakuza film directed by Yasuzo Masumura and starring Yukio Mishima.

Cast

Theme song

"Karakkaze Yarō" (released by King Records on March 20, 1960 in Japan)

This sound source is put on CD now.

References

External links