Professionell eller medmänniska? En kvalitativ studie om professionella förhållningssätt till samtal i livets slutskede

Sammanfattning: In our contemporary society death has been secluded in hospitals and care homes. A more individual and secularized society leaves death as a personal matter that is witnessed only on rare occasions. But for some, the conversation about death is part of an everyday routine. The aim of this study was to explore how professionals go about conducting these conversations in light of the current discourse on death. The method chosen for this study was qualitative interviews with seven different professionals, all active within an organization that, in different ways, handles the conversations about death. The participants are either social workers active within the healthcare sector or deacons in the church of Sweden. In analyzing our results we applied Anthony Giddens's theory of late modernity, focusing on the terms reflexive self and fragmentation of experience. This study found that late modern society’s attitude toward death affects existential conversations in a number of ways. One finding was that the professionals perceive clients as unaccustomed, and in some cases even unwilling, to engage in conversations about death. Another finding was that the social workers within the healthcare sector experienced a shortage of symbolic rituals as a result of the secular society. The last finding of this study was the professionals' struggle to separate professional life from personal life given that their work demanded them to use themself and their emotional life as their main tools.