The near-death experience as status passage Journal Articles uri icon

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abstract

  • Near-death experiences are identity transitions with many of the major social features of status passage as these were originally formulated by Glaser and Strauss (Status Passage, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1971). These features are described and then compared with the similar experience of being a castaway after shipwreck. In this way, the clinical near-death experience can be analysed as one of a number of social near-death experiences. Viewed as status passage many of the psychological reactions can be usefully seen as context dependent processes rather than simply defence mechanisms or products of neurophysiology.

publication date

  • January 1990