They worry about it and make demands upon their physicians. My patients are extremely concerned about the end of their lives. A psychoanalyst from Houston described the case of a neighbor who lost her son to cancer. His family quickly rallied around him as he moved from the hospital to home to await certain death. He said the role of psychoanalysts in such situations is educational, to make themselves available to families to talk about dying.
Children are difficult to teach death education.
Besides Prof. Loewenberg, other members of the panel were Esther Dreifuss-Kattan, a research psychoanalyst, Robert Goldstein, professor of law at UCLA, and William J. Winslade of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. The forum was chaired by Melissa L. Nelken, professor at the UC Hastings College of the Law.