Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (July 8, 1926 – August 24, 2004) was a Swiss-American psychiatrist, a pioneer in near-death studies, and author of the internationally best-selling book, On Death and Dying (1969), where she first discussed her theory of the five stages of grief, also known as the “Kübler-Ross model.” Source: Wikipedia
In 1969, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was leading seminars with medical students at the University of Chicago on the topic of caring for terminally-ill patients. “I tried to be their spokesman,” she said in an interview at the University of Chicago.
It was 12 years later in a nursing directors meeting at a hospital where I was employed that I would learn about the work of Dr. Kubler-Ross on the subject of “Death and Dying.” I purchased her book by that title which shifted my thinking about death and dying.
Over the years, I listened with interest as the media reported on her work and the growth of the movement which she had begun.
Twenty years later, as the primary caregiver for my parents, I added many volumes of her work to my library at the ranch.
When she addressed medical students, she began to change the cultural response about death and dying: “When you sit, listen – and hear – what the person is saying, you learn so much about the person and their wishes.”
As a medical doctor who specialized in psychiatry, she described “the last and latest taboo of the Western world – our fears about death and dying.” She helped her patients to face death with dignity and encouraged all of us to live each stage of life more fully.
I am certain her ideas contributed to the creation of a milieu which had been our goal from the day we moved into the ranch:
It’s about dignity: helping people to live until they die.
She is credited for having transformed our culture’s ideas about death and dying with what is now called the “Kubler-Ross Model.”
This theory about the stages of grief in death and dying – is now widely applied to many events of grief and loss in our lives, not “just” to death and dying.
In a tribute to a sports figure’s death in the year 2004, “CBS Sunday Morning” – which I had always regarded as the “elegant” morning show – presented a 10-minute tribute to the sports figure. (It was a name I did not recognize then – and I do not recall it now.)
But, in contrast, I noted that on the same day, perhaps 15 seconds was devoted at the very end of the program to a brief report about the death of this pioneer, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, MD. It was a mere mention of a truly transformational figure in our culture.
My tribute to her now is to raise a glass…
She influenced my thinking and approach to caring for both parents during the entire span of a 14-year tenure at the ranch. Integrating her theory into dementia care of dear ones left a significant impression upon me.
This remarkable physician inspired me to sit, listen and hear – even when words were spoken only on rare occasions in the final days…. And to be present for these dear ones – even when there were no longer any words.
It is about dignity.
Sources:
- To Live until You Die
- Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross: Talks with Medical Students about Life, Death, and Dying Patients
- Biography
Author: Susan Troyer, Website author and curator
Continue below for the Biography of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist who transformed the way in which our culture views grief, death and dying. Republished with permission from NIH.gov
Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was a Swiss-born American psychiatrist who pioneered the concept of providing psychological counseling to the dying. In her first book, On Death and Dying (published in 1969), she described five stages she believed were experienced by those nearing death—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
She also suggested that death be considered a normal stage of life, and offered strategies for treating patients and their families as they negotiate these stages.
The topic of death had been avoided by many physicians and the book quickly became a standard text for professionals who work with terminally ill patients. Hospice care has subsequently been established as an alternative to hospital care for the terminally ill, and there has been more emphasis on counseling for families of dying patients.
Elisabeth Kübler was one of three triplet girls born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1926. Though she weighed only 2 pounds at birth, she credited her survival to her mother’s attention and love. At age 5, when she was hospitalized with pneumonia, Elisabeth Kübler witnessed the peaceful death of her roommate—her first experience with death. On another occasion, she watched a neighbor calmly reassuring his family as he prepared for death from a broken neck.
Such experiences led her to believe that death is but one of many life stages and that the dying and those around them should be prepared to face it with peace and dignity.
When Kübler was 13, the German army’s invasion of Poland marked the beginning of World War II. She volunteered to help the Polish war victims. She first worked as a laboratory assistant in a hospital for war refugees, and then in 1945 she became an enthusiastic activist with the International Voluntary Service for Peace.
While still a teenager, she worked in France, Poland, and Italy, rebuilding communities devastated by the war. Just after the liberation of Europe in 1945, she visited Majdanek, a concentration camp, where she met a girl who had been left behind when the gas chambers would not hold another person. Rather than remain bitter, Kübler-Ross recalled, this girl had chosen to forgive and forget. The girl said, “If I can change one person’s life from hatred and revenge to love and compassion, then I deserved to survive.” Elisabeth Küblers experiences in Poland changed her life forever—she decided to spend her life healing others.
Against her father’s wishes, Kübler enrolled in the medical school at the University of Zurich in 1951 and graduated in 1957. In 1958, she married Emanuel Robert Ross, an American doctor she met in medical school. They moved to New York for internships at Long Island’s Glen Cove Community Hospital. Kübler-Ross then completed a three-year residency in psychiatry at Manhattan State Hospital and trained for a year at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx.
In 1962, after the birth of their first child, Kübler-Ross and her husband left New York for new jobs at Denver’s University of Colorado School of Medicine. When their second child was born in 1965, they moved to Chicago, where she became an assistant professor of psychiatry at Billings Hospital, affiliated with the University of Chicago. There, she began to focus on the psychological treatment of terminally ill patients suffering from anxiety.
She found that many health professionals preferred to avoid discussing death with them, leaving patients facing death alone. Medical schools preferred to focus on patients’ recovery rather than their death. She persisted with her work, however, organizing seminars on death and dying with caregivers, doctors, nurses, ministers, and others. Her seminars attracted large audiences.
“My goal was to break through the layer of professional denial that prohibited patients from airing their inner-most concerns,” she said.
Kübler-Ross was forced to end her seminars but continued her work with dying patients. The success of her first book, On Death and Dying (1969), prompted her to devote her clinical practice to dying patients, and to establish Shanti Nilaya (“Home of Peace”), a healing center near Escondido, California. In the 1980s she began to focus on helping AIDS patients and children facing death. Kübler-Ross continued with this work until she retired in 1996.
Biography is republished with permission from NIH.gov
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