Thanatos Revised: What Psychology May Look Like with Positive, Enduring Attitudes Towards Death and Dying
Human Arenas December 1, 2022 DOI: 10.1007/s42087-020-00182-y via Springer Nature
Summary
Death remains a taboo in contemporary society and psychology, yet debates about consciousness and near-death experiences are emerging across clinical, cultural, and philosophical realms. Quantum physics has shifted the notion of evidence-based science, revealing entanglements between matter and meaning. This theoretical paper questions psychology's empirical split between body and mind and explores thanatological perspectives like Eternalism, aiming to enlarge the concept of mental life to counter neuroscientific reductionism. Arguments are illustrated through a case study of Santa Scorese, a young Catholic woman assassinated in Italy in 1991, whose diary, her killer's letters, and an interview with her sister are analyzed. She is described as passionately in love with God and beauty while repressing her own body.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Case report Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Death Religion Spirituality Ontology Epistemology |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key finding | The paper argues for an enlarged notion of mental life that counters neuroscientific reductionism by addressing epistemological and ontological entanglements in psychology, illustrated through the case of Santa Scorese. |
Abstract
Death seems still to be a taboo in contemporary society, and in Psychology as well. Crucial debates around the end of life are emerging in a variety of clinical, cultural, and philosophical realms in relation to the meaning of consciousness and near-death experiences. After the advent of quantum physics, the very notion of ‘evidence-based science’ has profoundly changed and new markers on the entanglements of matter and meaning are now available. The present contribution aims at questioning Psychology in its core empirical split between body and mind and at getting familiar with different thanatological perspectives, such as Eternalism. More specifically, it tries to address the epistemological and ontological entanglements in Psychology in order to propose an enlarged notion of mental life able to counter any neuroscientific reductionism. My arguments will be interrelated through the discussion of a case study about Santa Scorese, a young Catholic woman assassinated in Italy in 1991 by a stalker and in the process of beatification since 1998. Santa Scorese has been described as a unique example of martyr for women’s dignity of the present era and I am going to argue how she was passionately in love with God and with beauty while repressing her own body at the same time. The foci of analysis will be her original post-mortem published diary, her killer’s letters, and an interview I recorded with her sister (currently highly committed in the complex Catholic process of beatification).