Abstract:
The purpose of the current study was to explore the possibility of increasing death acceptance among a non-clinical sample of young adults. Recent empirical findings have supported the effectiveness of life review therapies and legacy exercises in helping people who are facing their imminent deaths reduce anxiety and distress. The premise of these treatments is that reviewing ones life in a therapeutic context, or through organizing family photographs or creating autobiographical materials, produces a sense of closure or completeness that increases death acceptance. The current study sought to determine whether having young participants think about their life to-date as a complete story could likewise produce transient decreases in death anxiety and increases in death acceptance. Specifically, I predicted that reflecting positively on one’s past life experiences would produce a transient decrease in death anxiety and an increase in death acceptance. Results provided some support for this hypothesis; generally, participants who wrote about their past were found to be more accepting of death compared to those who did not. Moreover, they were found to be less avoidant compared to participants who wrote only about their future. These findings elucidate the potential benefits of applying life review therapy to increasing death acceptance in younger adults.
