Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy in the Process of Dying: Focus on Aged African Americans and Latinos

Abstract

Demographic data on population, poverty levels, and the life expectancies of African Americans, including some that contrast aged African Americans to European Americans, and Latinos, are presented briefly in this article. Attention also is directed briefly to the death and dying process occurring when aging African Americans have reached the final stages of the life cycle, and selected other topics pertinent to death and dying, such as deficits in the empirical literature on the death and dying of elderly African Americans and Latinos, developmental changes occurring during adulthood, and what constitutes a “good death.” Emphasized as this article closes is a case account and a description of how rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) can be useful in assisting African Americans and, possibly, Latinos, to cope in a dignified fashion with prospects of imminent death.

Keywords:

• Rational emotive therapy
• Dying
• aged
• African Americans
• Latinos