What We Pass On

Shadow-5

Alix Spiegel profiles psychiatrist Harvey Chochenoff, who developed dignity therapy:

The patients would be asked a series of questions about their life history and the parts they remember most or think are most important. Their answers would be transcribed and presented to them for editing until, after going back and forth with the therapist, a polished document resulted that could be passed on to the people that they loved. Chochenoff named this process dignity therapy, and for the last 10 years he has used it with the dying. And one of the things that has struck him about the processes is this: The stories we tell about ourselves at the end of our lives are often very different than the stories that we tell about ourselves at other points.

(Image: Shadow by Rook Floro)