Perspective

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross writes this entire account of her experimental research from her own perspective, but includes quotes and documented interviews from patients and other people who participated in the study with her. Having undertaken the experimental study at the request of college students, the author seems excited and surprised by what she has observed and this study, in fact, launched her writing/research career into death and dying. Her intrigue with this study is clear from her enthusiastic writing about it and, as most people know, she later conducted studies of people who had actually experienced death and lived to talk about it. This book, however simple the perspective, opened up a field that had been tightly closed due to cultural restrictions and medical implications.

Kubler-Ross was the first to publicly discuss the importance of talking openly with terminally ill patients, based on the perspective she gained through...