노년기는 인간발달의 마지막 단계로서 상승적 발달보다는 쇠퇴적 발달이 주로 이루어진다. 이러한 노년기의 주요 발달과업은 신체변화에 대한 적응, 역할 재조정, 여가시간의 의미있는 활용, 인생에 대한 재평가와 죽음에 대한 대비 등이다(김동배·권중돈 1998). 인간은 삶에 대해서는 계획을 세우지만 죽음에 대해서는 준비를 하지 않고, 단지 죽음에서 벗어나가 위해서 저항하는 경향이었다. 그러나 아무리 저항한다고 할지라도 더 이상 극복될 수 없다는 사실을 알기 때문에, 죽음이라는 것에 대해 두려움과 불안을 느끼게 된다. 정신분석 이론가 중에는 죽음에 대한 공포가 모든 공포의 근원이며 그 밖에 다른 불안이나 공포는 그 일환에 불과하다고 주장하고 있다(최순남, 1999).
Every man cannot understand about death. And cannot avoid nor overcome it. Death is inevitable. Therefore, man cannot but experience a sense of vain, terror and anxiety before death. It is deemed necessary to design and implement a welfare program which helps the elderly to be relieved of their anxiety about death and live their remaining life in a healthier way. Based on the assumption that the degree of elderly\' s anxiety about death would differ depending on their demographic variables and environmental conditions, a test group consisting of 10 old people was sampled from those elderly subsidized by a welfare center for their meals, while the same number of old people were sampled as control group, in order to conduct a comparative a priori and a posterior tesνanalysis. As a result of testing subjects\' degree of anxiety about death before and after the group art therapy, it was found that the degree of anxiety differed significantly in the test group before and after the therapy. (t=2.32， p<.05). If their conflicts or anxiety about death could be relieved through such a reflection on their entire life, their self-esteem would be improved, while a new meaning of their life be found， being better prepared for their death. Lastly, it is hoped that this study would be followed up by future studies.
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