X-Message-Number: 3706
From:  (Kevin Q Brown +1 201 386 7344)
Date: 19 Jan 95 11:52:00 -0500
Subject: Re: Margaret and Paul

Page 22 of the Jan. 14, 1995 issue of Science News included an article
relevant to Mike Darwin's recent message about the risks of depression.
The article's title is:
    Grief sometimes heads down a grievous path
and the text begins:
    "When loved ones die, they leave behind a legacy of emotional pain.
    Many clinicians and researchers view depression as the most worrisome
    psychological fallout of bereavement, because the sense of personal
    worthlessness and despair typical of that condition can lead to
    suicide. ..."
What should cryonics organizations do about this?  Logically, having
people cryopreserved rather than buried or cremated should be better,
because they might come back.  Emotionally, though, that may not be
the case.  When someone is cryopreserved, their status is ambiguous,
kind of like a soldier missing in action.  The person's _body_ isn't
missing, of course, but, like the missing soldier, nobody knows whether
the _person_ is coming back.  It must be difficult to complete the
grieving process in this situation.  The grieving, too, gets held in
suspension.

                              Kevin Q. Brown
                              
                              

  "Mommy, Mommy!  Where did Daddy go?"
  "Honey, he's on vacation.  A long vacation..."

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3706