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The Existential Obituary Writing Technique for Emerging Adults: Thematic and Content Analyses

October 2021
The Humanistic Psychologist

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Millersville University

Writing one’s own obituary is a technique rooted in the theoretical/philosophical principles of existential-humanistic psychology that has long been endorsed by existential-humanistic psychologists for its value in promoting second-order change (existential liberation) and self-cultivation. These processes are pertinent for emerging adults, for whom a principal developmental task is self-authorship (transitioning out of uncritically following external formulas learned in childhood and toward making internally based decisions to meet the demands of complex work roles and interpersonal intimacy as adults). To date, literature on obituary writing has been limited to a half-dozen sources, none of which offer formal investigations of its process mechanisms/dynamics. This study provides research support for the technique’s theoretical underpinnings and contextualizes its effectiveness as demonstrated in extant case studies in order to preserve its integrity in the current evidence-based practice zeitgeist. In this study, 22 emerging adults in a college course completed obituaries and reflections on the lived experience thereof. Thematic and summative content analyses were used to assess the thematic content included in the obituaries and the process by which the participants made sense of the act of writing them. Findings suggest that, in this sample, consistent with extant theorizing and informal observations, the experience of completing one’s own obituary begins with emotional discomfort followed by a transformative shift in the direction of a greater sense of acceptance, appreciation, and awe toward the possibilities of living the life one envisions. Finally, connections with and contributions to the emerging adulthood literature and suggestions for further inquiry are discussed.

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The Humanistic Psychologist

The Existential Obituary Writing Technique for

Emerging Adults: Thematic and Content Analyses

Andrew M. Bland

Online First Publication, April 9, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/hum0000176

CITATION

Bland, A. M. (2020, April 9). The Existential Obituary Writing Technique for Emerging Adults:

Thematic and Content Analyses. The Humanistic Psychologist. Advance online publication.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/hum0000176

The Existential Obituary Writing Technique for

Emerging Adults: Thematic and

Content Analyses

Andrew M. Bland

Millersville University

Writing one’s own obituary is a technique rooted in the theoretical/philosophical principles

of existential-humanistic psychology that has long been endorsed by existential-humanistic

psychologists for its value in promoting second-order change (existential liberation) and

self-cultivation. These processes are pertinent for emerging adults, for whom a principal

developmental task is self-authorship (transitioning out of uncritically following external

formulas learned in childhood and toward making internally based decisions to meet the

demands of complex work roles and interpersonal intimacy as adults). To date, literature on

obituary writing has been limited to a half-dozen sources, none of which offer formal

investigations of its process mechanisms/dynamics. This study provides research support for

the technique’s theoretical underpinnings and contextualizes its effectiveness as demon-

strated in extant case studies in order to preserve its integrity in the current evidence-based

practice zeitgeist. In this study, 22 emerging adults in a college course completed obituaries

and reﬂections on the lived experience thereof. Thematic and summative content analyses

were used to assess the thematic content included in the obituaries and the process by which

the participants made sense of the act of writing them. Findings suggest that, in this sample,

consistent with extant theorizing and informal observations, the experience of completing

one’s own obituary begins with emotional discomfort followed by a transformative shift in

the direction of a greater sense of acceptance, appreciation, and awe toward the possibilities

of living the life one envisions. Finally, connections with and contributions to the emerging

adulthood literature and suggestions for further inquiry are discussed.

Keywords: obituary writing, emerging adulthood, second-order change (existential libera-

tion), self-authorship, thematic analysis

The most deeply meaningful and vital occasions of our lives are

often those that unrelentingly force us to confront contingency,

Thanks to Drs. Kirk Schneider, Kand McQueen, and Eugene DeRobertis for providing

consultation on this article.

This article is adapted from my presentation, “A Validation of the Effectiveness of the

Existential Obituary Writing Technique,” delivered in May 2017 at the 4th Annual Conference of

the Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology (Section 3 of Division 5 of the American

Psychological Association) in New York, New York.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to XAndrew M. Bland, Depart-

ment of Psychology, Millersville University, Susan P. Luek Hall, Room 223-A, P.O. Box 1002,

Millersville, PA 17551. E-mail: andrew.bland@millersville.edu

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

The Humanistic Psychologist

ISSN: 0887-3267 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/hum0000176

responsibility, absurdity, loneliness, and that ultimate and inexora-

ble end of our familiar being to which we each must give the name,

“my death.”—Jim Bugental (1973–1974, p. 163)

Authentic living is contingent upon actively maintaining an awareness of one’s death.

Reﬂecting on death provides opportunities to (a) clarify one’s values, worldview, and

beliefs; (b) overcome self-preoccupation by consciously questioning one’s habitual pro-

clivities; (c) develop a greater sense of compassion and interdependence by recognizing

death’s universality; and (d) appreciate the preciousness and the fragility of life. Taken

together, these contribute to a greater propensity to take one’s life less for granted and/or

as something to be gotten through and instead to engage in it fully and responsibly

(Ostaseski, 2017).

The Obituary Writing Technique

Writing one’s own obituary is a technique rooted in the theoretical/philosophical

principles of existential-humanistic psychology and has long been endorsed by existential-

humanistic psychologists (Bugental, 1973–1974; Schneider, 2008) for its value as a

therapeutic tool both in the context of conventional counseling and for facilitating

personal growth in general. Clients or students (either in an individual or group setting)

are asked to write their own obituary, either in session or for homework. During

debrieﬁng, clients/students engage in dialogue with their therapist, instructor, or facilitator

(and, if applicable, group) regarding the experience of writing and subsequently discuss-

ing the obituary.

Promoting Second-Order Change (Existential Liberation)

Consistent with existential-humanistic therapy’s focus upon transformation of self and

existential liberation (Schneider & Krug, 2017), obituary writing may be classiﬁed as a

strategy that promotes second-order change—that is, a deep restructuring of self that

results in long-term, core-level shifts in and expansions of one’s perspective of oneself,

one’s lifeworld, and one’s concerns (Bland, 2013; 2019; Fraser & Solovey, 2007; Hanna,

Giordano, Dupuy, & Puhakka, 1995; Murray, 2002). Second-order change entails actively

creating a new way of being by identifying and remediating underacknowledged and

underactualized capacities within oneself to bring life domains into balance and to commit

to a more promising future despite the inevitability of limitations beyond one’s control

(Schneider & Krug, 2017). Accordingly, the process of growth becomes self-reinforcing

(Maslow, 1999) and can prevent mental health symptoms, addictive, compulsive, and

disruptive behavior patterns, and physical diseases (Bland, 2013; Maté, 2003, 2010).

Promoting Self-Cultivation via Existential Learning

Obituary writing is intended to promote individuals’ ability to experience themselves

as alive in the here-and-now (in the short term) and to awaken the plausibility of their

living more fully and in accordance with their values (in the long term). Bugental

(1973–1974) observed that the exercise (a) provides a safe platform for clients/students to

sit with uncomfortable emotions and openly address difﬁcult topics; (b) prompts clients/

students to appraise and potentially reconsider their involvement in superﬁcial activities

that distract from those difﬁcult topics and emotions (i.e., experiential avoidance); (c)

inspires hope, fulﬁllment, renewal, and refreshed perspectives on their lives and experi-

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2 BLAND

ences; and (d) promotes attunement to their values, life goals, and relationships as well as

a sense of responsibility to commit to necessary changes.

Inviting individuals to directly confront the reality of their mortality provides an

opportunity for existential learning, in which “something about a person’s life circum-

stances [is] changed such that [one] cannot go on as before” (DeRobertis, 2017, p. 43). In

turn, a sense of revitalizing intentionality (May, 1969; Schneider & Krug, 2017) is sparked

which spurs a process of self-transcendence and self-cultivation that employs the creative

imagination to shape one’s developmental trajectory (DeRobertis, 2017; DeRobertis &

Bland, 2019).

Promoting Self-Authorship for Emerging Adults

The second-order change and self-cultivation processes are particularly relevant for

emerging adults, for whom a principal developmental task is self-authorship (Baxter

Magolda & Taylor, 2016). This entails a continuous recursive process of transitioning out

of uncritically following external formulas learned during childhood and toward making

internally based decisions to meet the demands of complex work roles and interpersonal

intimacy as adults.

Extant Literature

Searches of EBSCO and Google Scholar databases in November 2019 showed that, to

date, literature on the obituary writing technique has been limited to a half-dozen sources,

most of which have concentrated on endorsing the value and intended outcome of the

technique (Bugental, 1973–1974; Ihanus, 2005; LaBelle, 1987; Oppawsky, 2002) and on

offering procedural instructions (Bugental, 1973–1974; Schneider, 2008). Two articles

have offered case illustrations as idiographic evidence of the technique’s effectiveness

(LaBelle, 1987; Oppawsky, 2002). Moreover, Shneidman (1972) explored the content of

obituaries written by college students.

Obituary writing provides an opportunity to view oneself objectively by being placed in a

position in which one must face one’s ﬁniteness (Shneidman, 1972). In addition, the reﬂective

process of obituary writing is conducive to enhancing openness to experience and to change.

Underdeveloped areas of experience are not only expressed but also explored, and primary and

secondary processes integrated, as one communicates with one’s “internal supervisor” (Ihanus,

2005, p. 72). This promotes greater sensitivity to one’s body, identity, and areas for personal

and professional development as well as self-esteem and self-efﬁcacy. “Self-revision is built

on juxtaposing one’s body of the past and one’s ‘potentiality-for-Being,’ coming toward

oneself, in the present of writing” (Ihanus, 2005, p. 71).

Bugental (1973–1974) provided basic theoretical considerations and procedural in-

structions for the technique as part of a collection of strategies for confronting one’s

mortality in a personal growth group context, which were slightly expanded in an

appendix in Schneider’s (2008) Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy textbook. Bugental

proposed that the exercise brings attention to how much of one’s day-to-day pursuits are

relatively meaningless, especially when one engages in compulsive activity as a means of

experiential avoidance. Accordingly, he observed that his group participants reported

“ﬁnding refreshed perspectives on their own lives and especially on their values and

choices about their relationships and activities” (p. 162).

Narrative case studies have demonstrated the technique’s effectiveness with clients in

various settings and phases of the life span. First, LaBelle (1987) reﬂected on the case of

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3EXISTENTIAL OBITUARY WRITING

an adolescent male who completed the exercise in a residential treatment facility and

concluded that it prompts adolescents to actively imagine what they want out of life. This

can be particularly empowering for those who have not previously considered life goals

or realized that they even have options for fashioning their lives in the ﬁrst place. Second,

in talking about an elderly widow who completed obituary writing as part of individual

bereavement therapy, Oppawsky (2002) focused on how, for older adults, the technique

can help individuals make meaning of past or present circumstances or events and

therefore disrupt dysfunctional behaviors, beget self-discovery, help clients recognize new

options, and thus foster motivation for change. Further, obituary writing can be useful for

middle-aged and older adults as a tool for life review and reassessment (LaBelle, 1987),

it can be implemented at various phases of the therapeutic process (LaBelle, 1987;

Oppawsky, 2002), and it is applicable to all social classes (LaBelle, 1987).

Finally, Shneidman (1972) analyzed and reported typical themes in obituaries written

by over 100 college students who were enrolled in a course on the topic of death, the

ﬁndings of which will be discussed later in this article in relation to those of the current

study. However, his contextual focus was not so much to explore obituary writing

speciﬁcally as a technique but rather with the more general intent of challenging the notion

pervasive in U.S. society that discussing death is “ghoulish” (p. 267).

Purpose of This Study

During the new millennium, existential-humanistic psychologists have made calls for

more research (beyond philosophical argument alone) to support existential-humanistic

theorizing and therapeutic techniques (Criswell, 2003; DeRobertis, 2016; Fischer, 2003;

Wong, 2017b) in the interest of keeping the existential-humanistic movement alive and

relevant for new generations and not becoming relegated to the status of a historical relic

(DeRobertis, 2013). Despite therapists’ use of the obituary writing technique for several

decades and its occasional inclusion in workbooks and websites offering therapeutic and

self-development activities (Stanford Graduate School of Business, n.d.; Valentine, 2017),

research on the technique remains wanting beyond the pair of case studies summarized

above. To date, there has been no formal investigation of its process mechanisms and

dynamics. Therefore, this study helps ﬁll that void by providing research support for the

technique’s theoretical underpinnings and contextualizing its effectiveness as demon-

strated in the extant literature in the interest of preserving its integrity in the current

evidence-based practice zeitgeist.

Method

Data Collection

This research evolved out of a class assignment completed by students enrolled in my

upper-division undergraduate psychology course at a mid-Atlantic state university. Al-

though this assignment was not originally intended as research, I found the students’

responses worthy of dissemination insofar as they ultimately provided meaningful insight

regarding the process mechanisms/dynamics of the obituary writing technique (as dis-

cussed above). The students’ responses also reﬂected a description by existential-

humanistic psychologist Kirk Schneider (personal communication, April 2017) of his own

clients’ responses to the exercise which afﬁrmed the relevance of the ﬁndings. Accord-

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4 BLAND

ingly, I sought and received approval from my institution’s Institutional Review Board as

well as informed consent from the individual students to analyze and publish their

responses in de-identiﬁed form. To prevent coercion, informed consent was sought after

the semester had concluded and grades had been submitted. All but one of the students

consented for their assignments to be used as research data. The exception was a student

who did not respond to the request for informed consent; accordingly, that student’s

assignment simply was not included in the analyses.

During the ninth week of a 16-week semester, I was traveling and could not teach

class. Rather than merely cancel class, the obituary writing exercise and a reﬂective

journal on that experience were given as a homework assignment in lieu of meeting for

class. The assignment was adapted from Bugental (1973–1974) and Schneider (2008).

Instructions were printed on a double-sided sheet of paper, which was folded and placed

in an envelope I presented to each student at the conclusion of the class meeting prior to

the missed day of class. The students were asked to not open the envelope or view the

contents until they were ready to devote an hour to completing the assignment alone in a

distraction-free setting.

The front side of the instructions read as follows:

One of these days—it could be tomorrow, 3 years from now, 30 years from now, or 63 years

from now—you will die. Someone, somewhere, will open a newspaper or browse the web (or

whatever is around at that time) and ﬁnd and read your obituary. What do you want it to say

about you?

Part 1

Please go to a quiet, private room. Turn off all potential distractions (phones, computers,

music, etc.). Take 5 min (no more or less than that, please). Imagine that you are someone who

knows you quite well, and it is that person’s task to write the obituary of a person who has

just died (that person being you).

Part 2

Now take 20 min (no more than that, please). Write a bit about the life of the person who has

died—not just what they did, but mostly something of the meaning of their life. What did that

person do with the fact of having been alive? What did that person’s life all add up to, as best

as you can say in a few words?

Please keep the obituary to no less than three fourths of a page but no more than 1 page

(double spaced).

Go to the next page. However, please wait until you gave completed Parts 1 and 2.

The instructions for the reﬂection portion of the assignment were printed on the back:

Part 3

Now, take another 25–30 min. Write a 2-page reﬂection on the experience of writing your

obituary. Please do not overthink your responses. Just write down the ﬁrst things that come

to mind.

yWhat feelings did it bring up for you?

yDid your feelings shift as you completed the exercise? If so, how?

yWhat bodily sensations did you experience as you completed the exercise?

yBehaviorally, what did you ﬁnd yourself doing as you completed the exercise?

yWhat thoughts did it bring up?

yAny memories and/or visions of the future?

yHow easy or hard was it to come up with what to say?

yTo say it all in 20 min? To get it all in three fourths to 1 page?

yIn what ways did you ﬁnd this exercise afﬁrming?

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5EXISTENTIAL OBITUARY WRITING

yIn what ways do you see yourself differently having completed the exercise?

yWhat adjustments or changes do you see yourself wanting or needing to make in your life

based on having completed this exercise? What plans do you have to accomplish that life

goal?

Participants

After removing two assignments completed by (a) the aforementioned student who did

not respond to the request for informed consent and (b) a student who, at 35 years old, was

beyond the age range for emerging adulthood (18 to 25 years; Arnett, 2000), the ﬁnal N

was 22 students, all in their early 20s. Twenty (91%) of the students were third- and

fourth-year psychology majors, and two students (9%) were third- and fourth-year

psychology minors (one majoring in English and one in sociology/criminology). Eighteen

(82%) of the students were female, and four (18%) were male. The majority were White

(n⫽17, 77%), plus two (9%) Black, two (9%) Latinx, and one (5%) multiracial.

Interestingly, several (n⫽6, 27%) of the students identiﬁed in their assignments that

they previously had been diagnosed with and/or treated for mental health conditions.

These included anxiety (n⫽1, 5%), depression (n⫽3, 14%), and substance abuse (n⫽

2, 9%).

Thematic Analysis

The purpose of this research was not to prove or disprove hypotheses but rather to

generate qualitative data that addresses the principal research questions of (a) what

thematic content the students included in their obituaries and (b) how the students made

sense of the act of writing their obituary by reﬂecting on the lived experience of having

done so. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used to highlight meaningful

patterns (Clarke & Braun, 2014; Joffe, 2012) that appeared in the students’ obituaries and

reﬂections, which, taken together, formulate a logical story (Tuckett, 2005) that maintains

ﬁdelity to the students’ lived experiences and subjective realities (Joffe, 2012).

Deductive and inductive thematic analyses. The students’ obituaries and reﬂec-

tions were analyzed separately. For both sets of writing, thematic analysis was used

deductively—that is, situating the analysis in relation to extant literature (Aronson, 1995;

Braun, Clarke, & Rance, 2014)—with existential-humanistic theorizing serving as a

guiding framework for initially organizing the data. Speciﬁcally, emphasis was given to

how the students’ writing reﬂected existential-humanistic literature on values, develop-

mental processes, and on self-growth via confronting one’s mortality. In addition, the

content of the students’ obituaries was compared with that reported in Shneidman’s (1972)

aforementioned research.

Thereafter, consistent with Joffe’s (2012) observation that, realistically, one concur-

rently uses deductive and inductive analyses, themes were inductively demarcated. Cod-

ing and analysis were principally conducted at the semantic and essentialist levels (i.e.,

taking the students’ words at face value; Braun & Clarke, 2006), though occasionally

latent meanings (i.e., those derived by “examining underlying ideas, assumptions, and

conceptualizations,” Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 84) were highlighted. These included, for

example, some of the dialectics in the students’ narratives.

Procedure. My initial exposure to the data involved reviewing the assignments

during the semester they were completed. At that point, being in “teacher mode,” my focus

was providing relevant feedback to the individual students’ narratives via Track Changes

(the journals having been submitted as Word documents). Several months later, the

comments were removed, and each assignment was reread with fresh eyes in “researcher

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6 BLAND

mode.” (This constituted the ﬁrst phase of Braun & Clarke’s [2006] steps to thematic

analysis, familiarizing yourself with the data.) During yet another reading, I provided

initial codes based on how the students’ writing corresponded to the speciﬁc questions in

the assignment. Next, I extracted (i.e., copied and pasted) portions of the individual

assignments into a new, composite Word document and reﬂexively coded material that

illustrated existential theorizing and/or that reﬂected or challenged extant literature on the

technique. I also reviewed the Track Changes comments that had been removed and

worked in relevant interpretative comments for the latent themes. (This constituted the

second phase, generating initial codes.)

From there, I maneuvered and reorganized the material in accordance with the initial

coding and began collating the coded data into potential themes. (This constituted the third

phase, searching for themes.) Next, extraneous writing was removed, some data were

occasionally recoded, some themes were consolidated into broader overarching categories

in cases where there was substantial overlap (i.e., “splicing and linking,” Joffe & Yardley,

2004, p. 61), and some information was split into separate themes when conceptual

elaboration was in order. Throughout this phase, a recursive and “organic” (Braun et al.,

2014, p. 190) process of coding and deriving themes from the data was used in lieu of a

predetermined coding system until I believed that the themes both stood well on their own

and cogently addressed the research questions (Clarke & Braun, 2014). (This constituted

the fourth phase, reviewing themes.)

Once the themes were thoroughly reviewed and ﬁnalized, they were mapped in

relation to each other to form a coherent sequential narrative and provided labels and

deﬁnitions that triangulated them with the extant literature (Clarke & Braun, 2014). (This

constituted the ﬁfth phase, deﬁning and naming themes.) Finally, parallels and occasional

discrepancies between the students’ writing and extant literature were formally explained

and discussed. (This constituted the sixth phase, producing the report.)

Content Analysis

Summative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) also was used to quantitatively

report how often themes or subthemes occurred in the data. However, given that themes

of equal relevance may be discussed in disproportionate quantity, it is important to bear

in mind that thematic analysis intentionally focuses more on “the ‘keyness’ of a theme”

and its importance in relation to the research questions irrespective of the number of times

it is discussed (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 82). Thus, given the highly individualized nature

of the obituary writing exercise, readers are encouraged to attend more to the thematic

content and the variations within and less on the frequencies—which, with some clearly

demarcated exceptions, are provided principally for the sake of offering a descriptive

portrait rather than making points about prevalence.

Findings, Part 1: Obituary Content

Voice and Time Perspective

Over four ﬁfths of the students (n⫽18, 82%) framed their obituaries in neutral third

person. However, some wrote from the perspective of a friend (n⫽3, 14%) or of a niece

(n⫽1, 5%). Almost two thirds of the students (n⫽14, 64%) did not specify the time of

their death. Only four students (18%) spoke from the distant future (specifying between

78 and 101 years old as their age of death), two students (9%) designated the day they

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7EXISTENTIAL OBITUARY WRITING

completed the assignment as the time of their death, and another two students (9%) said

they had died the previous week.

Biographical Elements

Students who included biographical information tended to focus on the past (i.e.,

factual histories) or on what they envisioned for themselves in the future. Only two

students (9%) used a combination of both.

Factual histories. Some students (n⫽2, 9%) included names of members of their

families-of-origin and of places they had lived (n⫽2, 9%), as well as educational and/or

work accomplishments as of the time they wrote the obituary (n⫽6, 27%). Over a third

of the students included descriptions of signiﬁcant formative experiences, including a

“secure and supportive upbringing” (n⫽1, 5%), a difﬁcult childhood (n⫽5, 22%), and

encountering friends’ self-harm or suicide during adolescence (n⫽2, 9%).

Imagined future. Almost half of the students envisaged educational and/or voca-

tional accomplishments they hoped to achieve (n⫽10, 45%), and some went so far as to

sequentially map out a career trajectory (n⫽2, 9%). Furthermore, three students (14%)

speciﬁed places they wished to eventually live, and over a quarter (n⫽6, 27%) included

future family (i.e., partners and/or children), some complete with names.

Principal Foci

Career. Almost two thirds of the students (n⫽14, 64%) concentrated on the careers

they were working toward as students, often speaking as if those goals already had been

accomplished. Three students (14%) discussed having overcome academic struggles as

students. For context, several students in the sample were ﬁrst-generation college students.

Perseverance. Nearly a third (n⫽7, 32%) of the students focused on their perse-

verance. For example, Student 18 “always worked hard and did whatever it took to make

ends meet and make it through every trial and tribulation she was met with.” Similarly,

Student 6, a ﬁrst-generation college student, described herself as “a hard worker who . . .

pushed through to pass classes and pursue the dream of graduating college. . . . Each day

she was taking another step toward [her] goals.”

Dialectical tensions. Almost half of the students (n⫽10, 45%) included contradic-

tory statements that seemingly reﬂected their negotiating dialectical existence tensions

(Wahl, 2003). For example, on one hand, Student 15 “wasn’t the type of woman that

sought conﬁrmation or validation”; on the other hand, she “had a difﬁcult time loving and

believing in herself, and that is most likely why she kept pushing herself: to prove that she

is good enough” (Wahl’s acceptance/afﬁrmation vs. rejection). Moreover, although Stu-

dent 10 “had a lot of boundaries to keep herself healthy and rested” and “she said no to

good things,” she nonetheless “still exhausted herself” by “always [having] something to

do, some place to drive to, somewhere to be involved at” (Wahl’s engagement vs. stasis).

Occasionally, the students arrived at a resolution of their dilemmas. Whereas Student 2’s

“biggest struggle was that she did not know what her purpose in life consisted of,” she still

was eager to “put her own dent in the world.” Toward the end of her obituary, she

concluded that along the way she had failed to recognize that “she already had a purpose

in life as a daughter, friend, and aunt” (Wahl’s meaning vs. meaninglessness; see also

Yalom, 1980).

Areas for growth. Some students more explicitly acknowledged their growing

edges. For example, over a third of the students (n⫽8, 36%) voiced their recognition that

they “sometimes put others[’] needs before [their] own” (Student 11) and “would often

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8 BLAND

stress over whether everyone was happy around [them] instead of making sure [they were]

happy” (Student 6), “even when [doing so] had a negative impact on [their] physical and

mental health” (Student 13). Likewise, two students (9%) discussed their tendencies to

procrastinate, and one student (5%) addressed her battle with perfectionism: “Her most

important rule in life was one that she herself had trouble with: that it’s ok to make

mistakes” (Student 5).

Resilience and giving back. Over a quarter of the students (n⫽6, 27%) focused on

the obstacles and adversities they had overcome and how these provided motivation for

them to give back in turn. For example, Student 8 “had to deal with the struggles of

adapting to [a different] culture, not being a proﬁcient student, lack of family resources,

and the challenge of having a family member with a mental disability.” However, “despite

those trials, [he] was able to have a successful career” in which he “created programs and

provided counseling to the families dealing with the separation of family for immigrants

and for families dealing with mental illnesses” as a means of fulﬁlling his “drive to help

others in similar situations” as his own. Similarly, Student 1 reﬂected that having come

“from a hard childhood and being told that he would never achieve his dream simply lit

a ﬁre under him to try harder and teach other [sic] to do the same because it will all

workout [sic] in the long run.”

Openness to experience and commitment to continuous improvement. Almost a

quarter of the students (n⫽5, 23%) emphasized their openness to experience and their

commitment to continuous improvement. For example, “Even when things didn’t turn out

the way she expected, she channeled the disappointment into a growth opportunity”

(Student 9) and “Every step of life she took she realized that it was more important to be

present rather than to be perfect” (Student 18).

Beyond status. Two of the students (9%) highlighted their striving toward intrinsic

values and social interest (Adler, 1931/1998). For example, after reﬂecting on being

fortunate to have experienced a “secure and supportive upbringing,” Student 7 declared

that she “did not want money, notoriety, or really even to be noticed, but she wanted and

aimed to be a good person” via her involvement in social justice efforts.

Findings, Part 2: Reﬂections on the Experience of Completing One’s

Own Obituary

Affective Aspects

In this sample, the experience of completing one’s own obituary typically involved a

trajectory that began with emotional discomfort followed by a transformative shift in the

direction of a greater sense of acceptance, appreciation, and awe toward the possibilities

of living the life one envisions.

Death anxiety and urgency. For almost a quarter of the students (n⫽5, 23%), the

experience provoked death anxiety. Student 2 wrote, “I was not at ease. Death is

something most people are not comfortable thinking about, let alone having to write about.

I am one of those people.” Furthermore, two students (9%) described the experience as

humbling, and over a quarter of the students (n⫽6, 27%) said that it provoked a sense

of urgency as to whether they had lived out their goals and values. For Student 1, writing

the obituary “opened [his] eyes to the fact that everything [he] always wanted to do with

[his] life so far has not happened.”

Emotional discomfort. The majority of the students reported experiencing emo-

tional discomfort as they began the exercise—including feeling (a) fearful, nervous, or

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9EXISTENTIAL OBITUARY WRITING

startled (n⫽6, 27%); (b) sad or solemn (n⫽10, 45%); (c) confused (n⫽2, 9%); (d)

disconnected and detached (n⫽1, 5%); and/or (e) awkward/taken aback (n⫽2, 9%).

Three students (14%) found it difﬁcult to concentrate and/or keep up with their thoughts

as they commenced writing their obituaries. Conversely, over a third of the students (n⫽

8, 36%) “didn’t even know where to begin” (Student 6) and “kept blanking on what to

say” (Student 18). Four students (18%) said they were able to overcome these issues by

stepping back and assuming another person’s perspective.

Furthermore, two students (9%) expressed sadness and three students guilt (14%)

speciﬁcally about the prospect of leaving their family and friends behind, which was often

accompanied by a sense of empathy: “I felt upset to think about what I would put them

through or the pain they would experience” (Student 20). Other students discussed feeling

self-conscious and embarrassed about completing the exercise. For example, two students

(9%) described the experience as “somewhat vain” in that “it’s not . . . often you are asked

to write about what your life means . . . to the world” (Student 18), whereas Student 6

“started getting sad also about the fact that [she does not] completely know how people

see [her].”

Some found the constraints of the task daunting. Almost a third of the students (n⫽

7, 32%) found it difﬁcult to sum up their lives on a single page, and two students (9%)

were unhappy about having excluded close relationships and/or signiﬁcant endeavors and

accomplishments. Furthermore, over a quarter of the students (n⫽6, 27%) “racked [their]

brains thinking about what [they] want [their] entire life to look like in just 20 minutes”

(Student 9).

On the other hand, not everyone found the experience unsettling. For example, Student

5 found the obituary “surprisingly easy to write” from beginning to end and reﬂected,

“Normally when I write about myself, I can’t help but feel arrogant. However, because the

piece was written thorough another point of view, the conceited feelings weren’t there.”

Further, some reported having little trouble with the space (n⫽2, 9%) or time (n⫽4,

18%) limits.

Transformative shift. Over four ﬁfths of the students reported either directly (n⫽

15, 68%) or tacitly (n⫽3, 14%) that, following their initial uneasy reaction, they

underwent a transformative emotional shift as the experience unfolded:

Student 7: “Often in the moment, I feel as though I can be negative or doubt my abilities.

However, when I looked back on my life thus far, I was extremely kind to myself and was very

positive about my experiences as well as who I am as a person. . . . Even though I may not

be exactly where I want to be and often have mundane days, I have a life thus far that ﬁlls me

with joy and gratitude.”

Student 19: “It feels motivating to write of all these wonderful things that could manifest over

the course of time. It gives my life substance and meaning.”

Student 4: “I was smiling thinking of what being alive meant to me and hoping that whoever

has to write this knows how I truly feel.”

Student 8: “While I was writing this my heart felt light and it is the same feeling I get when

I am nervous about a potentially positive opportunity.”

Positive aftereffect. Most of the students explained that completing the exercise left

them feeling (a) relaxed (n⫽3, 14%); (b) “calm and conﬁdent” (Student 13, n⫽1, 5%);

2, 9%); (e) hopeful, excited, and/or optimistic about the future (n⫽9, 41%; e.g., “I still

. . . have time to do meaningful work with my life,” Student 12); (f) “empowered”

(Student 15, n⫽1, 5%); and (g) “wise if maybe a little naïve” (Student 5, n⫽1, 5%).

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Awakening. Some students reported mixed and/or contradictory emotions. For ex-

ample, two students (9%) felt a combination of satisfaction and dissatisfaction insofar as

the exercise spurred an awareness that they could do more to live out their potential and

thus “made [them] realize what [they] truly want to get out of life” (Student 11).

Afﬁrmation, acceptance, and awe. Some of the students said that the activity

helped them (a) overcome self-doubt and better appreciate themselves (n⫽3, 14%); (b)

embrace their shadow (e.g., “accept some of the things I don’t love about myself,” Student

9, n⫽1, 5%); and (c) enhance their sense of temporality (e.g., consider “the broad picture,

not just the experiences I’ve had” with “a thought of creativity and wonder,” Student 22,

n⫽2, 9%).

Somatic Aspects

This trajectory was accompanied by shifts in bodily sensations. Some students

reported that initially being asked to think about dying caused them to feel tense (n⫽3,

14%), numb (n⫽1, 5%), and/or nauseous (n⫽1, 5%); for their heart to beat rapidly (n⫽

1, 5%); or to tear up upon identifying “who I was survived by” (Student 21, n⫽1, 5%).

Conversely, with the transformative shift also came repose (n⫽3, 14%). For example,

Student 21 recalled, “When I ﬁnished, I felt some relief and my body didn’t seem so tense.

I had written everything that I wanted to say at that moment.” For Student 4, it “felt like

a weight was lifted of [sic] [her] shoulders [to have gotten] things out.” For Student 19,

the act of writing “the things [she envisioned] about [her] personal life” also brought tears

and “chills.”

Behavioral Aspects

The tension experienced by the students prompted, for some, restless behaviors

including ﬁdgeting (n⫽2, 9%), shaking one’s leg and/or tapping one’s foot or ﬁngers

(n⫽4, 18%), biting one’s nails (n⫽1, 5%), playing with one’s hair (n⫽1, 5%), and/or

grasping one’s face (n⫽1, 5%). In addition, two students (9%) found themselves

frequently rewording their writing, and Student 2 reported often “looking at the clock to

see when the time would be up.”

For others, the tension gave the students pause. Four students (18%) sat perfectly still.

Student 16 found the experience “surprisingly quiet.” Two students (9%) frequently gazed

into space as they thought “deeply about what it really is that [they] want to be

remembered for” (Student 8) and “the meaning of [their lives]” (Student 15), and Student

21 glanced “at the walls . . . to see the pictures of [her] family to imagine what [her]

parents would say about [her].”

With the transformative shift and accompanying repose, two students (9%) said they found

themselves smiling. This was “because [they] felt fulﬁlled by . . . writing about all the positive

aspects in [their lives] and sharing them with someone else” (Student 4). Likewise, Student 10

felt content with her obituary and therefore disinclined to “rework the writing.”

Cognitive Aspects

Completing the obituary conjured up memories of childhood (n⫽6, 27%), of family (n⫽

2, 9%), of friends (n⫽3, 14%), of simpler times (n⫽1, 5%), of one’s transition into college

(n⫽1, 5%), and of a person whose loss a student had not adequately grieved (n⫽1, 5%).

It also sparked a variety of thoughts that served as points of departure for self-awareness.

Facing the unknown. For three students (14%), the uncertainty of the task triggered

a sense of self-doubt. Student 3 “felt [herself] questioning if [she] was doing it correctly.”

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11EXISTENTIAL OBITUARY WRITING

Two students (9%) remarked that it was hard to come up with to say, “mainly because

[they] don’t envision [themselves] dying anytime soon” (Student 9).

Facing the future. Accordingly, almost a third of the students (n⫽7, 32%) said that

the experience piqued curiosity about their future. For Student 17, “questions came up

such as: How will [she] die? When will it happen and how old will [she] be? Who from

[her] family will still be here and left to grieve [her] absence?” Others said that it made

them ponder who they will marry and what being adult will be like.

Clariﬁcation of values. Two students (9%) reported that the assignment made them

“think about what is most important to [them] in life” (Student 9) which, prior, they “never

took the time to think about” (Student 22). For example, Student 22 remarked that she “did

not understand how impactful [one of her hobbies] had been on [her] life.”

Intentionality and responsibility. Almost two thirds of the students (n⫽14, 64%)

reported that, by providing a friendly reminder of life’s transitoriness, the experience

prompted a greater sense of revitalizing intentionality (May, 1969; Schneider & Krug,

2017) and responsibility for their lives. For example,

Student 9: “It also made me want to live my life more purposefully. I really do want to see

life struggles as growth opportunities and become better rather than allowing myself to

become bitter. I also want to be intentional about my priorities in life.”

Student 6: “I need to work harder and faster towards the dreams I want so that I can

accomplish them because you never know when the end [will] come. . . . I think that now I

will deﬁnitely watch what I do and make sure that everything I do will be something that adds

meaning to my life.”

Student 12: “I am beginning to realize that there is not an inﬁnite amount of time. . . . I have

also had to accept the reality of having to make choices in life and face the consequences of

those choices.”

Student 14: “I realize I need to plan more to make my life what I want it to be.”

Similarly, almost two ﬁfths of the students (n⫽4, 18%) discussed how the experience

put them in touch with their sense of calling, their desire to leave behind a legacy, and the

steps they need to take to make that happen:

Student 13: “I . . . thought about what I want my life to mean and what I want to leave behind.”

Student 16: “From this point on I want to make better choices on how to accomplish my goal.

. . . This involves [involving myself in tasks that] can be tedious and boring but [are] necessary

to better understand what I need to do to accomplish my goal.”

One student (5%) mentioned that the experience sparked a greater sense of intrinsic

motivation:

Student 5: “I would love to write something that becomes a masterpiece. However, in order

to do so I would have to . . . write a lot more. I have a habit of not doing it if I don’t have a

reason. It would be nice if somewhere down the line, I learn how to write for my sole

enjoyment and no other reason.”

Finally, almost a third of the students (n⫽7, 32%) described how it motivated them

to drop facades/personas/imagos and to allow themselves to be vulnerable so their real self

(Horney, 1950; Rogers, 1959) could emerge:

Student 8: “It made me think about [whether] I have truly been portraying the person that I

want to be remembered for and what needs to change about myself to become the man I want

to be.”

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12 BLAND

Student 15: “This exercise was afﬁrming to me because I got to see myself the way I hope

another person sees me. These qualities are what I hope that I show the world. I also realized

how much of a front I put up a lot of . . . times. When I am around my family or close friends,

I am a different person than when I am around people I’m not as close to. I think I do this as

a strategy to protect myself in this little bubble. If I don’t let anyone else in, I can’t get hurt.

Through this exercise, I realized that I should start showing my . . . intelligence and my

personality to other people, not just my close friends and family.”

Appreciation. The experience also helped many students develop a greater sense of

appreciation. For half the students (n⫽11, 50%), it “got [them] thinking about what

[they] have actually accomplished so far” (Student 11), especially personal qualities

and/or achievements they had taken for granted. To illustrate, Student 12 reﬂected, “Life

keeps everyone so busy and can leave people to looking down a narrow tunnel of their

goals and aspirations without seeing their positive aspects of themselves in their peripheral

vision.” Accordingly, some of the students wrote about how the assignment helped put

challenges from the past into perspective, including histories of self-harm (n⫽2, 9%),

indecisiveness (n⫽1, 5%), and frequent relocation during childhood with a parent in the

military (n⫽1, 5%).

Three students (14%) articulated a sense of resilience and a recognition of the value

of struggle. Student 15 noted that she found herself “to be a strong and empowered young

woman because [she had] overcome so much in [her] past. [She] wouldn’t be who [she is]

or where [she is] today if it weren’t for overcoming all of the challenges [she has] faced

in [her] life.”

Two students (9%) reconsidered making social comparisons. For example, Student 4

said, “There will always be people . . . who have more than us and less than us, so it is

important to show gratitude for the people, life, and experiences we do have” (emphasis

added). Conversely, Student 18 “had no regrets or things that [she] thought of that would

make [her] want a ‘re-do.’”

The assignment also helped two students (9%) take others less for granted. Student 9

mentioned that she “wants to show the people [she] loves how much they mean to [her]

and invest [her] time and energy into loving others” and that “it can be easy for [her] to

get caught up in the day-to-day responsibilities and to-do lists that [she] can forget about

the things that are most important to [her] in life.”

Enhancing consciousness, conﬁdence, and self-efﬁcacy. May (1967) deﬁned con-

sciousness as the ongoing dialectic between experiencing oneself objectively and

subjectively, which provides creative capacities for authentic choice, freedom, and

social responsibility. Almost a quarter of the students (n⫽5, 23%) discussed how

they found it helpful to put their lives in perspective by writing about themselves from

the standpoint of another person. Accordingly, Student 10 said, “I am reminded of

life’s value, and I feel encouraged about my progress. I feel slightly renewed, like I

just received the message ‘you’re doing ﬁne, you’re on the right track’ and actually

believed it.”

About a third of the students (n⫽7, 32%) discussed how the exercise prompted

a stronger sense of conﬁdence, self-efﬁcacy, and empowerment. For Student 12, it also

provided a point of departure to refer back to during moments of hesitation: “I believe

that in times of strife where I feel an utter lack of self-conﬁdence and self-doubt in my

performance as a student or a person in general, I believe that I should think about this

exercise and think about the lives of those I have touched already.”

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13EXISTENTIAL OBITUARY WRITING

Goals for Growth

Many of the students identiﬁed insightful goals for personal growth.

Overcoming procrastination. Two students (9%) discussed how the assignment

motivated them to work toward overcoming procrastination. For example, Student 1

wrote, “It made me really start to want to get my life together and start to do what I set

out to do in the past but never began to even attempt.”

Improving self-care. Student 11 identiﬁed a speciﬁc strategy for improving self-

care: “I plan on eating better, exercising more, and even taking time off from school to

mend personal relationships with family and friends. In this time off from school I also

hope to volunteer and explore other jobs I could have while in school as well as when I

graduate. Overall I want to build connections and live a healthier life.”

Horney’s neurotic triad. Horney (1945) identiﬁed three basic interpersonal perso-

nas that individuals employ to cope with existential (basic) anxiety. Some of the students’

reﬂections suggested self-awareness of having assumed one of these defensive patterns

and identiﬁed plans to better allow their authentic self to unfold. First, three students

(14%) who exempliﬁed Horney’s movement away from others (characterized by emo-

tional and interpersonal detachment) discussed plans to better connect with the world. For

example, Student 4 said, “Maybe I do need to start showing my emotions and being more

emotional with my friends and family.”

Second, another three students (14%) typiﬁed Horney’s movement toward others

(characterized by dependency and people-pleasing). The assignment “made [them] realize

[that they] often times care about others[’] needs before [their] own” (Student 11), and

they aimed to “focus on [themselves] more, not on the entire world” (Student 22).

Third, Student 14 epitomized Horney’s movement against others (characterized by

aggression and/or competitiveness). Having identiﬁed as hyper-ambitious and even an-

ticipating dying of a heart attack in her obituary, she insightfully reﬂected, “I did not

realize before how much of a driven person I am.”

Beyond experiential avoidance. Student 17 noted that the exercise prompted a

better understanding of the value of difﬁcult emotional experiences and of better embrac-

ing the daimonic (May, 1969; Shumaker, 2017): “From here I think it would be beneﬁcial

for me to assess the more negative aspects and address those in my future. [This] made

me more aware of that fact that one day I will die, which I will also use as I shape my own

future.”

Discussion

Applied to both the students’ obituary content and reﬂections on their experience, the

content analysis revealed several common elements as well as a reasonable degree of

variation in how they dealt with, resolved, and gained insight from normative anxiety

associated with the obituary writing experience. In addition, several relevant themes

emerged that (a) reﬂect extant literature on the technique and its theoretical/philosophical

underpinnings and (b) challenge the ﬁnality of Shneidman’s (1972) analysis of college

students’ obituary content.

Obituary Content

With some exceptions, most of the students wrote their obituaries in neutral third

person. Some included factual biographical information, while others discussed accom-

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14 BLAND

plishments they hoped to achieve in the future; only two students included a combination

of both. Many students highlighted relevant concerns centered around (a) relationships

and other-directedness and/or (b) perseverance and its application in their career devel-

opment. As emerging adults, these two themes are consistent with Erikson’s (1963)

evocation of Freud’s lieben und arbeiten (to love and to work) as the principal develop-

mental tasks involved in negotiating Erikson’s (1959/1994, 1963) intimacy versus isola-

tion and which are echoed in Baxter Magolda and Taylor’s (2016) conceptualization of

self-authorship (as described in the introduction). These themes also set the stage for

individuals’ successful cultivation of care and wisdom later as adults (Erikson, 1959/1994,

1963; see also Lawford & Ramey, 2015; McAdams, 2013).

Comparison with Shneidman’s sample. Content-wise, the obituaries by the stu-

dents in this sample generally contrasted with those in Shneidman’s (1972) sample. First,

whereas 97% of Shneidman’s students wrote their obituaries from the perspective of the

distant future, less than one ﬁfth (n⫽4, 18%) of the students in this sample did so.

Instead, the majority wrote from the perspective of the present with a realistic eye toward

their next steps.

That said, Shneidman found that his students “exaggerated sentimental fantasies,

romanticized themselves, and emphasized personal and private anamnestic details rather

than biographical and objective data” (pp. 265–266). In contrast, the students in this study

typically acknowledged their areas for growth, either explicitly or implicitly, and it was

rare that they overstated their achievements. Rather, they concentrated on improvements

they needed to make in their lives—including negotiating Wahl’s (2003) existence

tensions as well as overcoming people-pleasing, procrastination, and perfectionism—to

make those accomplishments happen.

Connections with resilience and self-actualization literatures. Some of the stu-

dents discussed having overcome adversities and how doing so motivated them to give

back in turn. This sense of hope for a brighter future in conjunction with desire to

altruistically make a difference reﬂects empirically supported qualities of resilience

(Southwick & Charney, 2018).

Other students emphasized their openness to experience, their commitment to contin-

uous improvement in personal growth, and their investment in social justice and culti-

vating a culture of kindness as an alternative to status (Prinstein, 2017). Taken together,

these suggest qualities of self-actualization as an ongoing process of paradoxically being

guided by more idiosyncratic and intrinsic aims while also becoming more self-

transcendent (Maslow, 1987, 1999; see also Bland & DeRobertis, 2017).

Reﬂections on the Experience

Connections with Shneidman and Schneider. Like Shneidman’s (1972) students,

the majority of the students in this study reported feeling initially unnerved by the obituary

writing experience—which they attributed to (a) death anxiety; (b) a sense of urgency

about whether they had lived out their goals and values; (c) sadness and guilt about

leaving loved ones behind; and (d) confusion, detachment, and awkwardness. Their

emotional discomfort was sometimes accompanied by tension (somatically) and by

restlessness or pause (behaviorally).

However, most of the students also reported having encountered a transformative

emotional shift and sense of repose as the experience unfolded, which they found

afﬁrming and motivating. This shift echoes Kirk Schneider’s description of his own

clients’ experiences with obituary writing (personal communication, April 2017 and June

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15EXISTENTIAL OBITUARY WRITING

2019). It also suggests that the exercise provided a safe platform for the students (a) to

concretely experience the symbolic death of the familiar dependency of youth and

heroically face the self-responsibility of adulthood and (b) to vitalize their current

experience in a way that can inspire others (Campbell, 1988).

That said, cognitively, the exercise aroused a variety of thoughts ranging from

memories of the past to self-doubt (which, when appropriately heeded, can be empow-

ering; Arons, 2020) to curiosity about the future to a clearer understanding of one’s values.

Consistent with Bühler’s (1961) focus on active responsibility and commitment in

self-determination, many students explained that the experience prompted senses of

revitalizing intentionality (May, 1969; Schneider & Krug, 2017), of calling and intrinsic

motivation, and of striving toward fulﬁllment of qualities of being beyond the conditioned

self (Horney, 1945, 1950; Rogers, 1959). All these attributes contribute to the fulﬁllment

of Baxter Magolda and Taylor’s (2016) developmental task of self-authorship during

emerging adulthood.

Connections with resilience and self-actualization literatures. Echoing the resil-

ience literature (Southwick & Charney, 2018), some students articulated a sense of

gratitude for difﬁcult experiences that ultimately stimulated growth and empowerment.

Further, the overall tone of the reﬂections conveyed an air of future-directedness and

ability to “struggle well” that Walsh (2016, p. 5) suggested is the genuine hallmark of

resilience. Others expressed appreciation for the signiﬁcant people in their lives and an

intention to overcome taking things for granted.

Most of the students left the exercise with a greater sense of conﬁdence and self-

efﬁcacy, which some attributed to having written about themselves from the standpoint of

another person. Some discussed how the exercise helped put them in better touch with

their values and/or their life narratives which they had not previously considered partic-

ularly deliberately, and it provided a reference point to which they could later return for

inspiration. Finally, several students identiﬁed personal growth goals including overcom-

ing procrastination, improving self-care, surrendering interpersonal defenses and working

toward authenticity, and tempering experiential avoidance—all characteristics of self-

actualizing people (Maslow, 1987, 1999).

Additional Comparisons With Extant Obituary Writing Literature

Taken together, the ﬁndings of this study resembled Bugental’s (1973–1974; see also

Ihanus, 2005; Shneidman, 1972) observations about the technique as summarized in the

literature review above. These include (a) providing a safe platform for sitting with

uncomfortable emotions and addressing one’s mortality; (b) prompting reconsideration of

one’s involvement in superﬁcial activities; (c) inspiring hope, fulﬁllment, and renewal;

and (d) promoting attunement to one’s values, life goals, and relationships as well as

commitment to making necessary changes. Further, the ﬁndings were congruent with

LaBelle’s (1987) observation that the technique can be empowering for young people with

concerns about self-efﬁcacy and/or who have not considered their life narratives and the

degree of situated freedom they have therein.

Promoting Second-Order Change (Existential Liberation)

and Self-Cultivation

This awakened potential for personal growth also reﬂects the intent behind the

obituary writing technique for promoting second-order change (parallel with the construct

of existential liberation; Schneider & Krug, 2017). By way of a dialectic, dialogical

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16 BLAND

process with the objective world (i.e., individuals seeing themselves objectively as others

see them; May, 1983), identity (Schneider & Krug, 2017) and wisdom (Webster, 2010) are

actively created. Such a transformative experience is “ideally suited” (Shumaker, 2017, p.

1) for young people who are progressing through a developmental stage characterized by

the paradox of, on one hand, encountering a greater range of possibilities for oneself and,

on the other hand, grappling with the precarity of one’s future (Schwartz, 2016).

Moreover, Baxter Magolda and Taylor (2016) suggested that college educators should

intentionally help students develop self-authorship in order to successfully navigate adult

life. By jumpstarting their employment of the creative imagination as a guide for

identifying goals to responsibly shape their life trajectory (Bühler, 1961; DeRobertis,

2017; DeRobertis & Bland, 2019), the obituary writing exercise shows promise for the

possibility of the students engaging in a longer-term process of self-cultivation.

Promoting Existential Learning via Confronting Death Anxiety

Death anxiety should be addressed directly by emerging adults, for whom the phe-

nomenon underlies various forms of distress and diagnosable psychopathology and is

universal irrespective of one’s worldview, belief system, or demographics (Pashak et al.,

2018). “The possibility of death jars [one] loose from the treadmill of time” (May, 1953,

p. 271) insofar as it provides a vivid and life-afﬁrming reminder of one’s impermanence.

In this sense, the obituary writing technique facilitated existential learning (DeRobertis,

2017) in that it served to stop the students in their tracks and thereby make it difﬁcult for

them to uncritically continue living out habitual patterns and/or taking their lives for

granted. To illustrate, the students in this study remarked that the exercise (a) “made

[them] think” (Student 13) and “put [their lives] in perspective” (Student 16), (b)

encouraged them to “step out of [the] box” of their “everyday routine and feelings” and

“focus on seeing the bigger picture” (Student 15), and (c) left them feeling “hopeful that

[their actual] obituary could possibly be parallel to what [they wrote]” (Student 19).

By confronting the dialectic between death and life, the students became more capable

of living courageously and creatively in accordance with their values by engaging fully in

the present moment knowing they have a future of their situated choosing (Krishnamurti,

1954; Schneider & Krug, 2017). This serves as an alternative to either (a) denying death

by overemphasizing aliveness and optimism, projecting one’s fear onto the unknown,

attempting to defy death, and so forth or (b) engaging in pessimism and death obsession,

being accident prone or neglectful of one’s health, and so forth (Schneider & Krug, 2017).

The exercise also provided a platform for the students to safely question “the sea of

collective responses [to] and attitudes” about death (May, 1983, p. 107) and to develop a

sense of self-empowerment and self-determination as an alternative to conforming to

death anxiety in the culture.

Promoting Presence and Being

Though typically ﬁrst experienced as emotions, in mature form, the qualities of

presence and of being beyond the conditioned self (comparable to those associated with

self-actualizing people; Maslow, 1987, 1999) that emerge out of confronting one’s

impermanence provide a source of inner guidance toward optimal functioning and

commitment to the common good (Ostaseski, 2017). Furthermore, as noted by Frankl

(1963), the moment one’s potentialities are actualized, “they are rendered realities; they

are saved and delivered into the past, wherein they are rescued and preserved from

transitoriness. For, in the past, nothing is irrecoverably lost but everything irrevocably

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17EXISTENTIAL OBITUARY WRITING

stored” (pp. 190 –191). This is particularly pertinent for emerging adults as they develop

the ability to integrate a sense of past time perspective into a worldview dominated by

present and future (McAdams, 2015).

Connections to the Emerging Adulthood Literature

The theoretical tenets that are supported by the ﬁndings of this study also reﬂect extant

empirical research ﬁndings on emerging adulthood. For example, the integration of

subjective and objective modes of thought in postformal complex cognition has been

demonstrated as conducive to accepting the inevitability of death in emerging adults

(Jennings, Galupo, & Cartwright, 2009). Furthermore, interventions involving deep re-

ﬂection on and discussion of one’s purpose in life have been found to promote emerging

adults’ goal-directedness and to serve as a protective factor against normative decline in

life satisfaction (Bundick, 2011). Moreover, the development of measurable traits asso-

ciated with wisdom have been found to be negatively correlated with hedonistic impulses

and positively correlated with values related to personal growth, positive interpersonal

relationships, and social interest (Webster, 2010).

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

First, a principal limitation of the current study is that it involved a sample of emerging

adults (college students), and the ﬁndings reﬂect their particular phase of development and

the relevant concerns therein. Although the ﬁndings both support the general theory

behind the obituary writing technique as well as contextualize outcomes described in

extant case studies and in informal observations (Kirk Schneider, personal communica-

tion, April 2017 and June 2019) involving a broad age range, it is important to note that

searching for a purpose in life (a key ﬁnding in the current study) is associated with life

satisfaction primarily for adolescents and emerging adults and less so for adults (Bronk,

Hill, Lapsley, Talib, & Finch, 2009). Therefore, it is suggested that further inquiry explore

the obituary writing technique from the vantage point of individuals in other phases of the

life span and their speciﬁc developmental tasks, challenges, and/or concerns. An addi-

tional limitation concerns the data having been derived from an academic assignment,

which could have impacted what the students were willing to disclose and/or could reﬂect

an effort to appear favorably in the eyes of their professor.

Second, given that emerging adulthood has a cultural dimension (Schwartz, 2016), it

is important to bear in mind that this study used a sample of predominantly White females

completing an upper-division psychology course. These dimensions of cultural context

(gender, race/ethnicity, education level, choice of major/minor) likely inﬂuenced the

ﬁndings—particularly the content of the obituaries and the speciﬁc life goals and areas for

growth identiﬁed by the students. Therefore, further study involving different demograph-

ics is recommended to identify additional themes and to assess the extent they could be

socially constructed. Doing so also could contribute to emerging literature on the multi-

cultural applicability of existential-humanistic psychology and psychotherapy (Hoffman

et al., 2019).

Third, because this study was designed primarily to explore the process mechanisms

and dynamics involved in the obituary writing technique, although the participants

identiﬁed goals and areas for growth, the sustainability of outcomes was not directly

evaluated. Accordingly, a longitudinal follow-up is recommended to assess participants’

progress in working toward their goals, along with a longer-term reﬂection on completing

the obituary writing exercise.

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18 BLAND

Fourth, though some of the participants identiﬁed as having been previously diagnosed

with and/or treated for anxiety, depression, and/or substance abuse, overall, this study

involved a relatively nondistressed sample. Additional research should explore the process

dynamics of obituary writing with more severe clinical populations.

Finally, to contribute to the emerging body of research on the helper-as-person in the

training of helping professionals (Bland, 2018; Geller & Greenberg, 2012; Regas, Kostick,

Bakaly, & Doonan, 2017; Smith-Hansen, 2016), it is advised that further research explore

the obituary writing technique in the process of helper development and its potential utility

for promoting mindful presence, empathy, creativity, wisdom, and so forth in the interest

of facilitating clients’ growth.

Conclusion

The ﬁndings of this study closely resemble the characteristics of the process by which

emerging adults actively construct meaning from difﬁcult experiences, as described by

Bargdill, Marasco-Kuhn, Muron, and Chung (2019). First, an experience emerges unex-

pectedly that disturbs their sense of everydayness and familiar predictability, makes them

aware of their inauthentic behavior, and prompts them to respond more authentically.

Second, the experience directs attention to life’s fragility and to the extent to which

relationships are taken for granted. Third, the experience enables them to become more

conscious of and to integrate their sense of identity, to develop a stronger sense of life

purpose, and to appreciate the small stuff in everyday life. Fourth, the experience

energizes personal growth and maturation, strengthens interpersonal relationships, and

motivates the achievement of signiﬁcant life objectives. Fifth, the experience has layers of

meaning that are not fully understood at once but rather unfold over time and lead to

feelings of gratitude despite the mixture of negative and positive components. Taken

together, both this study and Bargdill et al.’s study heed Wong’s (2017a) suggestion for

advancing emerging psychological research on meaning-making (particularly from the

positive psychology canon) by providing more qualitative inquiry that (a) incorporates

“the dark side of human existence, which includes suffering and death” in order to

“deepen [psychologists’] understanding of what it means to live a meaningful, fulﬁlling

life and how to achieve it” and (b) takes into account lived experiences beyond self-

reported measures of surface-level behavior, cognition, and affect (p. 82).

Moreover, the obituary writing technique appears to hold promise as a relevant

antidote to concerns raised during the last decade about emerging adults’ abilities to

embrace healthy challenges (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2018) and to engage interpersonally

(Twenge, 2014, 2017). Accordingly, this study comes in response to Bronk and Baum-

steiger’s (2017) call for research that demonstrates how contemporary emerging adults

may assume meaningful aspirations that result in self-determined goal-directedness and

that “construct a kind of positive developmental context for their continued growth” (p.

49) in a manner that is both personally fulﬁlling and conducive to constructive worldly

engagement.

This study provided the ﬁrst formal investigation of the process mechanisms and

dynamics of obituary writing. In addition to preventing the technique from falling into

obscurity and obsolescence or becoming dismissed as unscientiﬁc in light of its limited

literature base, my intentions were (a) to offer research that counters faulty assumptions

about the passivity of existential-humanistic therapists as they typically are portrayed in

mainstream textbooks (Henry, 2017) and (b) to provide a heuristic foundation for

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19EXISTENTIAL OBITUARY WRITING

maintaining a dimension of depth in contemporary scholarship in developmental and

meaning-making processes while also (c) building bridges between literatures in existen-

tial-humanistic and mainstream psychology. On the other hand, it is worth noting that for

most seasoned existential-humanistic psychologists, the ﬁndings of this study generally

offer little that is conceptually new but instead provide an afﬁrmation of extant existential-

humanistic theorizing as demonstrated in the reﬂective writing of today’s emerging adults.

Accordingly, it is important that the vitality of these existential-humanistic principles and

related research ﬁndings is maintained at the level of description—and not sedimented

and/or diluted into a prescriptive strategy or confused for a rote manualized activity with

an unambiguous, preordained outcome (Mølbak, 2012). Rather, the mindful use of

obituary writing as a technique serves simply as a “conduit or means” for helping

professionals and educators to collaboratively and creatively promote clients’ or students’

self-reﬂection within the context of a empathetically attuned relationship as the primary

vehicle for growth and sustainable change on an individualized basis (Elkins, 2016, p.

117)—and not as a shield against the mystery of engagement therein.

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Author Note

Andrew M. Bland is a member of the graduate clinical psychology faculty at

Millersville University in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He earned a master’s

degree from the University of West Georgia’s humanistic-existential-transpersonal

psychology program and a PhD in counseling psychology from Indiana State Uni-

versity. He is a licensed psychologist, currently practicing at Samaritan Counseling

Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He serves as treasurer and as co-editor of the

newsletter for the Society for Humanistic Psychology. His scholarship provides both

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23EXISTENTIAL OBITUARY WRITING

qualitative and quantitative support for the practical application of themes and

principles from contemporary existential-humanistic psychology in the domains of

love and intimate relationships, work and career development, the processes of

therapy and education, and lifespan development. He is co-editor of The New–Old:

Recollections, Reﬂections, and Reconnoiterings of Mike Arons.

Received July 19, 2019

Revision received February 3, 2020

Accepted February 15, 2020 䡲

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24 BLAND

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Full-text available

Aug 2022

Objective In this argumentative literature review, we advocate an existentially-informed clinical psychology. Many of today’s challenging societal issues would benefit from the lens of existentialism, and our field has seen an emergence of interest lately in topics such as death anxiety as a transdiagnostic construct. We see this context as opportune for an existential-psychological confluence of ideas and praxes. Method We identify and review here four relevant ongoing streams of literature (core existentialism philosophy, existentially-oriented psychotherapy, death anxiety psychometrics, and terror management theory) and argue in favour of their increasingly intertwined integration with one another and with the broader field of clinical psychology. Results We propose methods for both academics and practitioners alike to more fully embrace an existentially-informed mindset, culminating in a set of ten recommendations for clinical psychology across applied clinical work, research/scholarship, and pedagogy/supervision. Examples include increased use of qualitative data via case study and mixed-method approaches in our science, enhanced incorporation of existential themes (including but not limited to death anxiety) into psychotherapy, and adoption of a student-focused freedom-enhancing existential mindset in teaching. Conclusions Our field has made great strides in deepening the understanding of how life’s ultimate concerns inform mental health and functioning in recent years, and we support an even more robust endorsement of existential frameworks in clinical psychology to continue such progress. KEY POINTS What is already known about this topic: • Existentialism is a humanistic philosophy, emphasizing choice, responsibility, authenticity, and acceptance of limitations in life. • Scholarship in psychotherapy, psychometrics, and other psychological topics benefits from influences of existential philosophy. • Death anxiety is a transdiagnostic etiological variable and therapies involving existential themes are empirically supported. What this topic adds: • (1) Existentialism has many clinically useful lessons to offer psychology, across its teaching, research, and psychotherapy. • (2) Areas of clinical psychology involving death anxiety, mortality salience, meaning-making, and others should be better integrated. • (3) We advocate the adoption of an existentially-informed clinical psychology and offer suggestions for moving forward.

A 15-Year Progress Report on the Presence of Humanistic/Existential Psychology Principles in Mental Health Outcome Measurement: Thematic Discourse and Summative Content Analyses

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2022

Andrew M. Bland

Fifteen years ago, Pfaffenberger (2006) applied five implicit paradigmatic assumptions identified by Slife of the dominant positivistic medical model paradigm—hedonism, universalism, atomism, materialism, and objectivism—to psychotherapy outcome research and its practice implications. Her applied theoretical essay revealed critical issues involving hidden power and privilege dynamics therein. Furthermore, Levitt et al.’s (2005) research examined nine then-common outcome instruments to determine the extent to which their item content reflected humanistic psychology principles in nine domains derived from the authors’ systematic review and thematic analysis of the humanistic literature. Their content analysis revealed that the majority of those domains were inadequately represented. In this article, using thematic discourse analysis (aka latent thematic analysis), I first identify how the philosophical and political assumptions summarized by Pfaffenberger are apparent in three outcome instruments that are commonly used in U.S. community mental health settings today: the Adult Needs and Strengths Assessment, the Ohio Mental Health Consumer Outcomes System, and the DSM-5 assessment measures. As part of my analysis, I contrast paradigmatic assumptions of the medical model with those of humanistic/existential psychology as a basis for contextualizing and understanding the implications of measurement-based care as articulated through the two discourses. Then, second, based on a summative content analysis of the three instruments, I report on the progress that both has been and remains to be made in their item content since Levitt et al. noted the general dearth of humanistic principles in mental health outcome measurement. Suggestions for future research and instrument development are discussed.

Existential Givens in the COVID-19 Crisis

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2020

Andrew M. Bland

COVID-19 confronts humanity with an undeniable, unprecedented crisis. The focus of this article is the opportunities it offers for a proverbial pressing of the reset button by prompting pause and reflection on habitual patterns and serving as an “urgent experience” with the potential to spark revitalizing intentionality. Using Greening’s four dialectical existential givens—life/death, community/isolation, freedom/determinism, and meaning/absurdity—as a guiding framework, I explore imbalances in aspects of life in the United States that have been illuminated by COVID-19. Then, I employ existential–humanistic theorizing and research as a vision of how these dialectical forces can be transcended by confronting paradoxes posed by these givens (vs. simplistically overemphasizing either their positive or their negative aspects) and by activating the creative potential therein. Specifically, COVID-19 offers opportunities for individuals to relinquish an unsustainable and ineffective way of being inherent in and reinforced by the U.S. cultural narrative; to embrace ambiguity and tragedy; to actively identify, remediate, and reconcile underacknowledged and underactualized human capacities; and therefore to heal false dichotomies and become more capable of living fully, authentically, and flexibly. Accordingly, COVID-19 also provides opportunities for collective co-creation of a cultural narrative involving evolution toward enhanced senses of consciousness and caring.

The Phenomenology of Learning and Becoming: Enthusiasm, Creativity, and Self-Development

Book

Full-text available

Jan 2017

Eugene Mario Derobertis

In this text, the history of phenomenological research on learning is synthesized and brought forward into the areas of existential learning, the development of enthusiasm about learning (from childhood through adulthood), and paradigmatic creative experience. Original research findings are derived using the Giorgi method of descriptive phenomenological analysis in psychology. The results, structural and eidetic in nature, are then integrated from a holistic developmental viewpoint: that of Existential-Humanistic Self-Development Theory (EHSDT). An evolving developmental partnership between learning and creativity emerges as the proper conceptual frame for considering optimal growth and the relative maturity of situated becoming oneself (i.e., the process of self-cultivation). The resulting perspective is supported by cutting edge trends in neuroscience and related to pedagogy and education. DIRECT LINK TO BOOK: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057%2F978-1-349-95204-5

Challenges and New Developments in Existential‐Humanistic and Existential‐Integrative Therapy

Chapter

Full-text available

Apr 2019

This chapter reflects the farther reaches and leading edges of contemporary existential‐humanistic and existential‐integrative psychotherapy. It includes multicultural, Asian, and transpersonal‐spiritual trends. Although historically existential‐humanistic therapy has struggled with multiculturalism, many recent developments have begun addressing this limitation. The chapter highlights some important innovations in considering relationships and identity, self‐actualization, and social justice. In order for existential‐humanistic psychology to be relevant across diverse cultures, as well as being informed by such engagement, it is necessary for it to become aware of the individualistic bias and begin moving beyond it. Many recognize that there are significant roots of humanistic and existential thought within Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the three primary philosophies that have deeply impacted Chinese culture. This is why there has been so much interest in cross‐cultural dialogue and the development of existential‐humanistic psychology within China. The chapter describes the resonances between Confucianism, Taoism, Zhi‐Mian Psychology, and core tenets of existential‐humanistic psychology.

Lifespan Human Development and "The Humanistic Perspective": A Contribution Toward Inclusion

Article

Full-text available

May 2019

Humanistic psychology has a long tradition of developmental thought. Yet, no place has been reserved for a specifically humanistic perspective in developmental psychology textbooks. This article presents a humanistic perspective to serve as a convenient guide for the potential creation of a textbook entry. A highly condensed account of Existential-Humanistic Self-Development Theory (EHSDT) is outlined and compared to the theories that most frequently garner coverage in developmental textbooks. Suggestions for further research on the major themes of EHSDT are also provided. These include the role of the imagination in shaping the trajectories of lifespan development, the inter-corporeal and multicultural embeddedness of the narrative imagination, the self-cultivation process, cooperative culture creation, thriving amid paradox, and the ways in which motivational dynamics operate within diverse social contexts. Carefully planned rollout of such research should help prevent further marginalization of explicitly humanistic developmental theory on the basis that it challenges some of the fundamental assumptions of the established theories and, accordingly, tends to be met with resistance or, at best, indifference.

One Way That Meaning Is Created: A Phenomenology of Meaningful Events for Young Adults

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2019

In this qualitative study, six college-age participants (three male and three females) provided written and narrative accounts about an event in their lives they found to be personally meaningful. The accounts were analyzed using an existential-phenomenological framework. The results suggest that a meaningful life event is often experienced as uncanny or completely unexpected. The participants believed that circumstances proceeding and following the event included actions both by others and their selves that were not forthright. The resulting conflict in this meaningful event will require authentic actions from the participants. Those authentic actions helped participants reaffirm their identity, revitalize vulnerable relationships, and expand their sense of purpose. Participants eventually felt gratitude toward the difficult but meaningful event.

Separation of Church and Trait: Trait Death Anxiety is Universal, Distressing, and Unbuffered by Worldview in Emerging Adults

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2020
J RELIG HEALTH

We begin with a review of death anxiety in emerging adults and then report on a descriptive survey study using the Revised Livingston-Zimet Death Anxiety Scale (RLZDAS). Research questions dealt with the RLZDAS’ factor structure, demographic patterns, and hypothesized correlations with distress and religiosity/spirituality. We surveyed university-enrolled emerging adults (n = 706). Findings included a 3-factor solution on the RLZDAS (cognitive, repressive, and affective) and no appreciable relationships with demographic factors. Clinical symptomatology was correlated with death anxiety (r = .40), particularly cognitive death anxiety (r = .45), especially in non-believers (r = .58). Religiosity/spirituality did not buffer death anxiety, and some components were actually positively correlated. We argue that death anxiety in emerging adults is multidimensional, clinically relevant, and relatively universal and that broad notions of worldview/belief are not necessarily protective factors.

The Personal Hero Technique: A Therapeutic Strategy That Promotes Self-Transformation and Interdependence

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2019

Andrew M. Bland

This article introduces and provides initial qualitative support for the effectiveness of the personal hero technique (PHT), a second-order change strategy rooted in humanistic-existential psychology that builds on and practically applies the emerging heroism science literature. Specifically, I ask clients to identify a hero/heroine. Then I ask them to identify five characteristics that they admire in that person, five ways in which they see themselves as similar to that person, and five things they can do to become more like that person. During debriefing, I engage in dialogue with the clients regarding how they may apply insights gleaned from the exercise in the interest of promoting self-reflection and developmental maturation/transformation as well as other-awareness and relational connectedness. In this article, I survey the theoretical/philosophical basis of the PHT and its connections to humanistic-existential principles and other extant heroism literature. Then I describe how to implement the PHT as well as discuss its effectiveness using two case illustrations. Finally, I provide suggestions for future research on the PHT in a variety of contexts.

Facilitating and Assessing Personal Growth in Helper Development Using Hart's (2014) Four Virtues

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2017

Andrew M. Bland

During the last decade, calls have been made for a paradigm shift in the training of helping professionals to include an increased emphasis on developing the helper as a person in addition to honing technical proficiency. Models by Ridley et al. (2011), Geller and Greenberg (2012), and Fauth et al. (2007) have identified characteristics and provided working definitions of intrapersonal helper competencies and attributes. However, these are only a descriptive starting point. More work remains in their practical implementation in helper training and research thereupon, as well as in developing appropriate tools for assessing helpers’ capacities in these areas. One exception to this dearth of helper-as-person assessment tools is Hart and Hart’s (2014) Spiritual Assessment Matrix (SAM)—which is based on Hart’s (2014) Four Virtues, a model of personal growth that encourages balance among the 4 interdependent qualities of presence, heart, wisdom, and creation. In this article, I reflect upon my employment of Hart’s model and the SAM to promote intrapersonal and interpersonal competence in master’s students enrolled in an entry-level graduate course in Psychotherapy and Intervention Skills. After surveying Hart’s model, I describe the method by which the students completed and reflected upon the results of the SAM before and after supervised experience with a client. Next, I provide a thematic analysis of the students’ end-of-semester reflections with connections made to extant helper development literature. Finally, I discuss implications of Hart’s model and assessment for helper training while addressing its limitations and provide suggestions for further research.

Maslow’s Unacknowledged Contributions to Developmental Psychology

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2017

Few readily identify Maslow as a developmental psychologist. On the other hand, Maslow’s call for holistic/systemic, phenomenological, and dynamic/relational developmental perspectives in psychology (all being alternatives to the limitations of the dominant natural science paradigm) anticipated what emerged both as and in the subdiscipline of developmental psychology. In this article, we propose that Maslow’s dynamic systems approach to healthy human development served as a forerunner for classic and contemporary theory and research on parallel constructs in developmental psychology that provide empirical support for his ideas—particularly those affiliated with characteristics of psychological health (i.e., self-actualization) and the conditions that promote or inhibit it. We also explore Maslow’s adaptation of Goldstein’s concept of self-actualization, in which he simultaneously: (a) explicated a theory of safety versus growth that accounts for the two-steps-forward-one-step-back contiguous dynamic that realistically characterizes the ongoing processes of being-in-becoming and psychological integration in human development/maturity and (b) emphasized being-in-the-world-with-others with the intent of facilitating the development of an ideal society by promoting protective factors that illustrate Maslow’s safety, belonging, and esteem needs. Finally, we dialogue with the extant literature to clarify common misgivings about Maslow’s ideas.

Existential-integrative approaches to treating adolescents

Book

Jul 2017

D. Shumaker

This book frames how existential theory and intervention strategies can be seamlessly integrated with evidenced-based approaches when treating adolescents. This groundbreaking text begins with an overview of EI theory and provides an exhaustive review of risk and protective factors that contribute to an adolescent's experience of existential anxiety. Other book highlights include a proposed developmental model of existential anxiety in adolescence, and individual chapters devoted to working with adolescents who present with anxiety, depression, substance abuse concerns, and disruptive behaviors. Rich case study descriptions enrich this exciting and impactful approach with empirical support. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017. All Rights Reserved.

Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges

Book

May 2018

The Existential Obituary Writing Technique for Emerging Adults: Thematic and Content Analyses

Abstract

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