죽음에 대한 정신분석적 고찰과 기독교 상담적 활용

Psychoanalytic Reflection on Death and Its Applications in Christian Pastoral Counseling: A Focus on Death in the Elderly

This paper inquires into death, particularly death in the elderly from a psychoanalytic perspective and examines the benefits and the limits of this psychoanalytic reflection on the subject matter. In order to do so, in the second section of this paper, the author scrutinizes the psychoanalytic understanding of death and its clinical implications regarding the nature of humanity, the life instinct (or Eros), and the death instinct. In the third section, the author explores biblical and theological perspectives on death in the elderly. In the fourth section, the author reflects on death in the elderly from the perspective of Christian pastoral counseling to respond to the question of how pastoral care should be provided for the elderly who are facing death, while having an interdisciplinary dialogue with arguments discussed in the second and third sections. Thus, the author in the fourth section begins with arguments regarding the human desire that longs to be essentially related to God and the issue of one’s own death. Also he analyzes the psychological care for psychological changes of the elderly, the physical care for their physical changes, and the spiritual care for their spiritual crises. In overall, the author attempts to stress the perspective of Christian pastoral counseling on death in the elderly throughout the paper.