Malini Mundle is a counseling psychologist who has done bedside counseling and therapy for over a decade with individuals who are terminally ill and with their loved ones and care ...view moreMalini Mundle is a counseling psychologist who has done bedside counseling and therapy for over a decade with individuals who are terminally ill and with their loved ones and care givers. Her thesis, The Phenomenon of Living with Dying in Terminally Ill Cancer Patients: A Qualitative, Heuristic Study of the Hospice Team’s Perspectives, explores the challenges in the last stage of life.
Care giving for my terminally ill mother brought me face to face with psychic pain, physical suffering and emotional trauma. I suffered with her. What held me together and encouraged an active participation to improve her quality of life was an absolute conscious denial of her imminent death. This also led to an inauthentic engagement. I could not witness with her this last intense period of her life, compromised with suffering. Her legacy to me was the challenge of being fully present not just for patient’s physical and emotional needs but to recognize that an integrated, honest commitment was imperative during the living with dying stage of life.
Subsequently I did an MA in Counseling Psychology, with a focus on seminars and courses and practicum that trained me to be a palliative care giver. During this time I counseled patients with cancer in hospitals and hospice and understood that just as an epileptic is really a human being who has epilepsy so also a cancer patient is an integrated being with the additional burden of cancer and dying. Their needs, desires, identity, joys and sorrows, fears are no different to those of us who do not face our mortality so starkly.
This thesis is the culmination of years of engagement with people who suffered terminal illness, who wrote or told their stories, and gently acknowledged their living with dying, putting the knowledge aside to communicate, introspect, and share immense love and the joy and pain. It has been an enriching experience to acknowledge mortality and still witness with individuals who live with dying. Their courage, endurance and resilience are an example for all the living who are also dying.view less