The human experience of dying: the moral primacy of stories over stages.

the publication in 1969 of On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross forcefully called attention tp the care of the dying. Her work has had a substantial impact on health professionals, but it has also helped to shape the attitudes and orient the thinking of the general public. Kubler-Ross' portrayal of the dying person as passing through stages has become, if not an official doctrine, the dominant, exemplary paradigm for understanding dying one without a significant rival either in the health sciences or the general culture. In this essay I wish to acknowledge the pervasive impact of Kubler-Ross on the way we think about dying,3 and to argue that her influence has done us a disservice aa well as a service. We have profited from, but we have also become blinded by, the