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Psychogenic death: People can die from giving up the fight

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  1. dredmorbius
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    There is a fascinating nexus, apparently underaddressed in psychology, revolving around a set of topics; stress, agency (and lack of, and false agency), worldviews or world models (individual,...
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    There is a fascinating nexus, apparently underaddressed in psychology, revolving around a set of topics; stress, agency (and lack of, and false agency), worldviews or world models (individual, shared, cultural), grief (which I increasingly view as a continuum of responses to worldview collapse), surprise, even humour (a non-traumatic response to surprise).

    There is a strong relationship to Maslow's hierarchy, probably better seen as a set of three pairs of need-security dynamics; physiological, social, and creative.

    What the article describes is a more profound personal response to stress, lack of agency, and long-term collapse of worldview, at an extreme of the overall dynamic.

    I've been recently looking at the role (and absence) of ritual in major life transitions: birth, religious inductions (e.g., baptisms, confirmation, bar- and bat- mitzvah), academic graduations, marriage, funerals, retirement. There are also the traumas not associated with cultural ceremony or recognition: divorce, property and violent crime, legal judgements and actions, illness and diagnosis, psychological distress and illness, job loss, accidents and disasters. The traumas people face individually and without recognition or acknowledgement seem most traumatic.

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