ADEC at 40: Second half of life wisdom for the future of death education and counseling

摘要

The author uses a developmental model of nonprofit organizations (Simon, 2001) to examine the history, current status, and future prospects of the Association for Death Education and Counseling on the occasion of its 40th anniversary as a professional society. Borrowing from the work of Richard Rohr (2011) on second half of life wisdom, the author suggests that such maturity represents the association's best pathway to consolidating its accomplishments to date and sustaining continued growth in the future. Eight aspirational goals are proposed for ensuring reinvigoration of ADEC members as individual death professionals and of the association as a collective body.