Breaking the Social Taboo of Dying, Death and Grief. An Appeal to Institutions of the Social Work Field

Abstract or Introduction

In my theory-based thesis, I will deal with the hypothesis: Every person, regardless of cognitive abilities, is able to mourn, to understand death, and they should not be denied that. A differentiated conclusion should be an appeal to social institutions in particular to break the taboo on the topics of dying, death and grief and to show possible solutions for raising awareness with regard to work, or dealing with people with cognitive disabilities and dealing with the end of life.

In the beginning, I will explain the terms "death" and "disability" in context of their social taboo, in order to then go into more detail about their connection and to emphasize the motive of the thesis. This will be followed by a more extensive discussion, which, based on Piaget's stage model of cognitive development and Wittkowski's concept of death, will use appropriate practical examples in the form of participatory observations to demonstrate that people with a wide range of cognitive abilities are capable of understanding "death".

In addition, I would like to discuss the extent to which personal fear of being confronted with death and possibly other factors motivate employees of social institutions and relatives to exercise the aforementioned reluctance towards the clients. Among other things, I would like to use Franke's work to justify the individual and social benefit of further taboo breaking. Finally, I will summarize my findings regarding the need for change in the attitude towards death in social work and show possible solutions.

Ultimately, the thesis should serve as an appeal to the reader and in particular to social institutions to question the personal and professional handling of the topics of dying, death and grief and invite them to deal with it more intensively in order to gain a more conscious approach and thus to be able to support people with cognitive disabilities in a more sensitive and individual manner.