Tag: end of life
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Why we need narratives about suffering in old age
There is a collective aversion when it comes to facing the realities of old age, or so John Harris argued in The Guardian last February. Harris is, of course, not the first to point at a widespread public revulsion of growing old, and the association with loneliness, isolation, powerlessness and uselessness. Nowadays, many of us…
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Older people on self-chosen death
Caught between intending and doing: older people ideating on a self-chosen death Els van Wijngaarden, Carlo Leget and Anne Goossensen (( University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, Netherlands)) Abstract Objectives The aim of this paper is to provide insight into what it means to live with the intention to end life at a self-chosen moment from an insider…
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Ready to give up on life
The lived experience of elderly people who feel life is completed and no longer worth living. Els van Wijngaarden, Carlo Leget and Anne Goossensen ((University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, Netherlands)) In the Netherlands, there has been much political and public debate on the question whether elderly people, who are tired of life and who consider their life…