Living with HIV and AIDS: the problems of mortality.
Int Conf AIDS 1993 Jun 6-11; 9:118 (abstract no. WS-D15-4) Rinken S; European University Institute, Florence, Italy.
In Western industrialized societies, death has, in the course of the 20th century, become a taboo. This statement is a commonplace neither the reasons, nor the consequences of which have properly been understood as yet. People are generally not ready to acknowledge themselves as mortal: death is generally not taken into account for the way in which individuals conduct their daily lives, especially when young. This appears evident to us. But the fear raised by death in Western societies today is historically and culturally very distinctive. Now, diagnosis as positive is likely to impose the lucid awareness of being mortal on individuals who are as ill-prepared to handle this thought as is their social environment. The latter may react by imposing social death on the infected: the equation of a life-threatening condition with imminent death is an easy way of exorcising one's own fears. Such reactions add further to a pressing problem. How can lucid awareness of one's own mortality be handled today, after the received pattern of Christian morality has largely lost its credibility? How can the thought of death be applied as a means in order to shape one's conduct of life in a meaningful way? Is the assumption of a stable personal identity the only source of meaning we can think of? My research-project, the first results of which will be available by June, explores these questions empirically by way of in-depth interviews.
Keywords: AEGIS, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, HIV Infections, Death, Fear, HIV Seropositivity, Awareness, Attitude to Death, Interviews, Social Environment, Interpersonal Relations, mortality, ICA9 930606
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