(d) The attitude towards death.
On a primitive level there is no understanding of the problem of death and consequently complete inability to face death. The death of others might evoke a superficial, impersonal form of reflective thought. A primitive individual does not believe in the reality of his own death. In case of an immediate danger of death naive attempts are made to escape it in panic, there is sheer terror, fright, and violent defensive reactions.
On a higher level, i.e., that of unilevel disintegration, there is an ambivalence in one’s attitude towards death, ranging from uncontrolled fear, phobias and suicidal tendencies, up to mental rigidity and indifference. This relation to death is an expression of inner instability. There appears certain awareness which is, however, without any hierarchical elements. These reactions express a tendency to think of death as something external to the normal order of life, consequently there is no significant effort to integrate the problem of death into the personality structure.
On the level of the first stage of multilevel disintegration, ambivalent states of anxiety, heroism, rationalization, and the like lead to a slow integration and hierarchization of the problem of death into the personality structure. This problem, then, is considered within the context of all human dilemmas. An individual on this level of development shows towards death a dramatic attitude, at times tragic, entering into all personality problems. Inclinations towards suicide are accompanied by some reflection, but suicide itself is possible. The value of many things is approached and defined from the point of view of death. The sense and meaning of life is seen in connection with matters of death.
On the level of the organization of multilevel disintegration the problem of death is placed in a definite correlation with other problems and aspects of life. The development of a sublimated attitude towards death often causes the activity of the disintegrative dynamisms to increase in order to destroy residual structures of primitive levels in the inner milieu which are unwanted by the developing self. This conscious and willful program of eradication of the lower structures of personality can be called the instinct of partial death. The problem of death is placed within the hierarchy of values; it is incorporated into the personality structure; it is clearly “interiorized.” Without being made less important or less dramatic it is placed in the context of other basic problems of equally high or even higher values such as responsibility for others, charity, permanence and unrepeatability of one’s spiritual values.
On the highest level of human development, i.e. that of secondary integration, there appears a still more precise definition of one’s personal relation to death. The death of others and their own attitude towards death become as important as our own view of it. The problem of death is not only subordinated to other problems and developmental values but enriches them in turn. When the individual becomes responsible for the totality of his own development and for the development of his external environment, he takes the problem of death as a part of the general process of inner development.
