Fear in palliative care

Abstract

Fear and anxiety are similar, but different, clinical states. Fear is an unpleasant emotional response caused by the anticipation or awareness of danger and encourages avoidance from the threat. The cancer journey, for most, involves episodes of fear. Anxiety is prompted by generalized, non-specific threats to the ‘self’ motivating hypervigilance and the retention of proximity to the perceived threat. Anxiety is a common emotion experienced in the approach to the end of life. Whilst management of anxiety states is well appreciated, the management of fear states, with the exception of phobias, is not. This article considers the limited literature on the management of fear.

Keywords:

• Fear
• Anxiety
• Hope
• Spinoza
• Easeful death
• Courage
• Transcendence

ORCID

A. D. (Sandy) Macleod http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1158-7682