Doctor, Can You Please Tell Me What Happens When I Die?

Brouwer, Illand Jan (2020) Doctor, Can You Please Tell Me What Happens When I Die? Bachelor thesis, Bachelor Religiewetenschappen.

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Abstract

An often heard complaint in medical care in the Netherlands, is that health professionals don’t seem competent in conversing about the existential dimension of their patients’ illnesses. This complaint is often considered as a symptom of a larger trend: that we lost a common existential language, as the result of a loss of general structures from which the existential dimension of life used to be understood socially. Even though many solutions are offered to the problem of the lack of existential language, it remains unclear why any of these solutions would be adequate or inadequate. I propose that this unclarity can exist because the problem of the lack of existential language is understood too straightforwardly, while a deepened understanding of this problem can give theoretical support in arguing its potential solutions. In this paper, I show that the lack of existential language can be understood more deeply, by examining it from its social context of medical care in the Netherlands. I argue that this social context is characterized by a divide between the doctors’ more secular discourse, and the patients’ more post-secular discourse. And I will show through theoretical research that this divide is unbridgeable when existential themes are discussed. Through this, I will show that understanding the lack of existential language from its dimension of social context, allows us to gain a deeper, theoretical understanding of this problem. In the end, I will show how such a renewed understanding of the lack of existential language, can give grounded theoretical support in arguing for its solutions.

Type:	Thesis (Bachelor)
Supervisors (RUG):	Supervisor E-mail Tutor organization Tutor email Visser-Nieraeth, A. Faculteit GGW, Religiepsychologie (met speciale aandacht) Geestel A.Visser-Nieraeth@rug.nl Andrejc, G. Faculteit GGW, Cultuurgeschiedenis van het Christendom G.Andrejc@rug.nl
Degree programme:	Bachelor Religiewetenschappen
Academic year:	2019-2020
Date of delivery:	28 May 2021 12:13
Last modified:	28 May 2021 12:13
URI:	https://rcs.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/591

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