Abstract · Our attitude to death is influenced by our religious/spiritual views. My study focuses on spirituality, because spirituality, considered as behaviour intended to seek the goal and ultimate meaning of life and due to the nature of connection with the transcendental dimension of being, is a notion of a wider semantic range than religiosity.

The aim of the study is to explore the relationships between spiritual openness, attitude to death, anxiety, and coping strategies. The study was conducted among members of the Anonym Alcoholics (AA) and hospice volunteers. Although they belong to different organisations, AA being a non-profit self-help organisation and hospice being an institution providing health care services, the common feature is that they both fill a niche in the present health care system. My findings show that spiritual openness correlates with lower level of anxiety, more adaptive coping strategies, and more accepting attitudes towards death. Thus spirituality is a factor of psychological well-being, therefore it would be important to include the view of spirituality in our everyday life, respectively in the scope of the health care system.

Abstract · Sooner or later in our lives we all have to face the transitory nature of life. In some societies this is easier, in some others it is more difficult. Why is it difficult for the 21st century European man to view death as a natural concomitant of life? And why can some distant cultures, such as Islam, accept the fact of death as a natural part of life. In this study I am searching for explanations and summarize the basic principles that define the way of thinking of Moslem believers, and I attempt to give a point of reference for doctors, nurses, and those working in the field of palliative care by emphasizing a couple of specific characteristics of religion.

Abstract · The case study is based on an interview with a mother who experienced perinatal loss several times. Her personality, environment, attitude to her unborn children, and the circumstances of their death had a great impact on her grief process. The study presents the hard life of this woman who harboured suffering for a long time, and at the same time it raises the question of alternatives and possibilities of providing help and assistance.

Abstract · The paper of the physiotherapist living in Stockholm presents the case study of a young girl who had enigmatic somatic symptoms presumably due to suppressed grief. The author summarizes it in the following way: The girl told me that many a times her legs failed her when she wanted to stand up, and she started to feel this weakness and pain in other parts of her body. She explained to me in an overanxious manner, that each inch of her body aches. She did not seem to have an explanation for it. What she told me about her somatic complaints was completely chaotic. At about the third treatment I noticed that she was afraid of something. When I shared my observation she confessed that she was afraid of ending up like her father. He had cancer that was difficult to detect, and by the time it was diagnosed operation was out of the question, and he died. Catharina decided NOT TO MOURN! It is better for her father this way! However, her ’understanding’ and intellectualizing could not alleviate her fear of disease, her grief, and the void left behind by her father. She undergone several treatments, then she ’fled’.