Excerpt from Right at Home: (click for entire article)
Few people know more about the anger, fear, and guilt terminally ill patients harbor as they come to grips with their approaching death than the hospice worker charged with helping patients and their families handle those negative emotions and achieve a good death.
Two Minnesota psychologists say exercises in story-telling can help dying patients move past debilitating emotions by allowing the patient to view his or her life more positively and bringing family members closer.
"The idea is to empower the person to help them affirm their life experience," says Howard Thorsheim, PhD, professor of psychology at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. "We have found that story-telling is the glue that binds us together."


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