Graduation Date
2025
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Project Type
Mixed Methods
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy
Program
Art Therapy
Program Director
Richard Carolan, PhD, ATR-BC
First Reader
Jennifer Clay, PhD, LMFT, ATR-BC
Second Reader
Erin Partridge, PhD, ATR-BC
Abstract
Death in the United States is often viewed as a medical event rather than the natural course of life, which results in avoidance of planning for the inevitable. The emergence of Hospice in the 1970s, Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) laws in several states, and the positive death movement have demonstrated a shift in attitudes and priorities about death and dying. Since the early 2000s, end of life doulas (EOLDs) have emerged as practitioners who help people plan for and transition to death. Emotional and existential coping skills are components that emerge from death work, and these elements can be assessed using the Self-Competency in Death Work Scale (S-C DWS) (Chan, et al., 2015). First developed for palliative care providers, the S-C DWS was utilized in this research to assess the death competency of EOLDs. Combining artmaking and the S-C DWS, the researcher attempted to answer these questions: how does work as an EOLD manifest the ideas of freedom, meaning, isolation, and death; and, do art directives aid in processing these concepts for an increase of their score on a death competency scale? Qualitative and quantitative data was gathered from 14 EOLD participant interviews, art directives, and S-C DWS. The implications for future research point to the importance of using art to address the existential ideas that impact EOLDs and death competency in their work.
IRB Number
11218