Silence about encounters with dying among healthcare professionals in a society that ‘de-tabooises’ death

摘要

Background : Empirical studies on healthcare personnel indicate that professionals’ experiences with dying and death become silenced and unutterable within the healthcare service. Aim : To explore and interpret silence about encounters with death and dying among healthcare professionals in Norway. Method : The method used was theoretical exploration, using a psychosocial approach. Findings : This analysis reveals complex interrelations and two-way dynamics between subject-worlds, sociocultural and societal worlds when it comes to dealing with death and dying at work. A performance culture saturates these worlds, and may be implicated in silencing death within the healthcare institutions of the Norwegian welfare state. Conclusions : This article suggests that silence about death and dying among healthcare professionals is indicative of crucial emerging and unresolved tensions in the neoliberal episteme, accompanied and reinforced by the ineluctable basic conditions of life and intrapsychic defence against threats towards the self.