Positive Psychology Meets Health Psychology: Resilience Amidst Death Anxiety Among the Elderly

Abstract

The ensuing paper addresses an emerging trend witnessed in the present times concerning the increase in the numerical figure of the elderly population due to continued improvements in treatment. Hence, their quality-of-life has all the more become an important affair. To attend to this concern, the researcherrespondswithanoverview of the psychological framework to better understand the concepts of death anxiety and resilience and their relationship which may serve as a promising area of study in psychology. A lot of research has been conducted in the Western culture on these postulations but the same hasn’t been done within the Eastern frame of reference. The notion of death is altogether different from this outlook as majority of the elderly population here tends to believe in aspects like an afterlife and moksha. Accordingly, it is cardinally necessary to recapitulize how ideas like death anxiety are perceived in such cultures. Thanatophobia is the fear of death or fear of the dying process, and it is omnipresent among the elderly. Therefore, the researcher in this qualitative research report aims to explore how this anxiety can be restored to resiliency which may lead to wholistic and successful aging. Though aging is a natural process, fruitful aging is a multifaceted concept, and in consequence various factors in this regard have been contemplated so that strength, adaptability and positive attitudes can be cultivated. The pilot trial of this qualitative paper can be implied in clinical settings for the mental healthcare of the elderly age bracket who experience a high level of death anxiety; health professionals may also work towards promoting hardiness or reducing the trepidation of death respectively.