What is Death Anxiety?

This video answers the question: What is death anxiety? When we talk about the construct of death anxiety, we're talking about an unpleasant emotion that's brought about by existential concerns, so when somebody's contemplating their own death or the death of other people. Death anxiety is normal and it's not inherently maladaptive. Some level of death anxiety works to actually reduce the risk of being involved in dangerous situations. Death anxiety can also lead to other positive coping mechanisms, however, an extreme level of death anxiety can lead to problems. We see maladaptive coping strategies and feelings of terror sometimes with death anxiety. Death anxiety is considered to be a stable, distinct trait, not a state. It is not an emotion that comes and goes quickly, but rather a part of the personality. A lot of times death anxiety is conceptualized as just another expression of generalized anxiety disorder or major depressive disorder, but actually death anxiety is considered distinct. We see that the overlap, for example, with generalized anxiety disorder is only about 15 to 20%. Death anxiety is more stable over time than generalized anxiety disorder or major depressive disorder and those two disorders respond better to treatment than does death anxiety. Even though death anxiety is relatively stable as individuals age, it tends to decrease over time. One of the theories about this is that realizing that death is nearby, that it is inevitable and closer normally of course as people age, creates this desire to focus on the present and build relationships. We believe that is the mechanism that operates as people age, but we also know that other stable personality constructs tend to change with age as well. For example, agreeableness increases as individuals age as does conscientiousness. Neuroticism decreases with age and, of course, it would make sense that there's a link between death anxiety and neuroticism. Death anxiety is considered to be transdiagnostic and what that term means is it's a construct we see across a number of mental disorders. In and of itself it's not a mental disorder. We see it manifests oftentimes in panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, somatic symptom disorder, illness anxiety disorder, and also a number of the specific phobias that are related to elements that could lead to death or that would be dangerous (e.g. being afraid of heights or spiders). Effective treatment of these various mental disorders may also lead to a decrease in death anxiety, but as I mentioned we consider death anxiety to be a trait. It's stable and this really explains why it seems to be resistant to treatment, but that doesn't mean it cannot be addressed in therapy. A number of other personality traits are addressed in therapy and sometimes quite effectively (e.g. some personality disorders).