| Elisabeth Kübler-Ross | |
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Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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| Born | July 8, 1926 Zürich, Switzerland |
| Died | August 24, 2004 (aged 78) Scottsdale, Arizona, USA |
| Fields | Psychiatry |
| Institutions | University of Chicago |
| Known for | Kübler-Ross model |
| Influenced | Caroline Myss, Vern Barnet, Bruce Greyson, Sogyal Rinpoche |
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D. (July 8, 1926 – August 24, 2004) was a Swiss American psychiatrist, a pioneer in Near-death studies and the author of the groundbreaking book On Death and Dying (1969), where she first discussed what is now known as the Kübler-Ross model.[1]
She is a 2007 inductee into the American National Women's Hall of Fame.[2] She was the recipient of twenty honorary degrees and by July 1982 had taught, in her estimation, 125,000 students in death and dying courses in colleges, seminaries, medical schools, hospitals, and social-work institutions.[3] In 1970, she delivered the The Ingersoll Lectures on Human Immortality at Harvard University, on the theme, On Death and Dying.
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Elisabeth Kübler was born on July 8, 1926 in Zürich, Switzerland, one of triplets. Elisabeth was born fifteen minutes before her identical sister, Erika. Minutes later came her sister, Eva.[4] Her family were Protestant Christians. Her father did not want her to study medicine, but she persisted. Eventually her father took pride in her career. In an interview she stated: In Switzerland I was educated in line with the basic premise: work work work. You are only a valuable human being if you work. This is utterly wrong. Half working, half dancing - that is the right mixture. I myself have danced and played too little."[5]
During World War II she became involved in refugee relief work in Zürich and later visited Majdanek death camp. She graduated from the University of Zürich medical school in 1957.
She moved to the United States in 1958 to work and continue her studies in New York.
As she began her psychiatric residency, she was appalled by the hospital treatment of patients who were dying. She began giving a series of lectures featuring terminally ill patients, forcing medical students to confront people who were dying.
In 1962 she accepted a position at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Kübler-Ross completed her training in psychiatry in 1963, and moved to Chicago in 1965. She became an instructor at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine. She developed there a series of seminars using interviews with terminal patients, which drew both praise and criticism. She sometimes questioned the practices of traditional psychiatry that she observed. She also undertook 39 months of classical psychoanalysis training in Chicago.
Her extensive work with the dying led to the book On Death and Dying in 1969. In this work she proposed the now famous Five Stages of Grief as a pattern of adjustment. These five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In general, individuals experience most of these stages, though in no defined sequence, after being faced with the reality of their impending death. The five stages have since been adopted by many as applying to the survivors of a loved one's death, as well.
Kübler-Ross encouraged the hospice care movement, believing that euthanasia prevents people from completing their 'unfinished business'.
In 1977 she persuaded her husband to buy forty acres of land in Escondido, California, near San Diego, where she founded "Shanti Nilaya" (Home of Peace). She intended it as a healing center for the dying and their families. She was also a co-founder of the American Holistic Medical Association.
In the late 1970s Kübler-Ross became interested in out-of-body experiences, mediumship, spiritualism and in other ways attempting to contact the dead. This led to a scandal connected to the Shanti Nilaya healing center where she was duped by the medium Jay Barham, founder of the Church of the Facet of the Divinity. Claiming he could channel the spirits of the departed and summon ethereal "entities", he encouraged church members to engage in sexual relations with the "spirits". He may have hired several women to play the parts of female spirits for this purpose.[6] Kubler-Ross' friend Deanna Edwards attended a service to ascertain whether allegations against Barham were true. He was found to be naked and wearing only a turban when Edwards unexpectedly pulled masking tape off the light switch and flipped on the light.[7][8][9]
Kubler-Ross may have thought that Christianity taught transmigration of the soul (reincarnation).[7]
She conducted many workshops on AIDS in different parts of the world. In 1990 she moved the healing Center to her own farm in Head Waters, Virginia to reduce her extensive travelling.
Kübler-Ross suffered a series of strokes in 1995 which left her partially paralyzed on her left side, and the healing Center closed around that time. In a 2002 interview with The Arizona Republic, she stated that she was ready for death. She died in 2004 at her home in Scottsdale, Arizona, and was later buried at the Paradise Memorial Gardens cemetery.
In 1958 she married a fellow medical student from America, Emanuel ("Manny") Ross and moved to the United States. Becoming pregnant disqualified Kübler-Ross from a residency in pediatrics, so she took one in psychiatry. She had two miscarriages, finally having a son, Kenneth, and a daughter, Barbara, in the early 1960s.[10] Her husband requested a divorce in 1979.
One of her greatest wishes was her plan to build a hospice for infants and children infected with HIV to give them a last home where they could live until their passing, inspired by the aid-project of British doctor Cicely Saunders. In 1985 she attempted to do this in Virginia. But local residents feared the possibility of infection and blocked the necessary re-zoning. In 1994, she lost her house and possessions to an arson fire that is suspected to have been set by opponents of her AIDS work.[11]