Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: biography of this Swiss psychiatrist and expert in grief

In this biography of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross we will learn about the life of this influential psychiatrist.

The 20th century was a time of immense advances in psychology, thanks to a whole generation of important authors. One of them was Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, whose life we will know below.

In this biography of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross we will review both the most relevant events of her life and her most valuable contributions to the field of knowledge to which she dedicated practically her entire professional career.

Brief biography of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1926.. Her birth was traumatic, as she was part of a multiple birth in which there were, in addition to herself, two identical twins, forming a set of triplets. Despite the complications, her mother was able to deliver all of them.

This was not the only hospital experience she would have at her young age, as she became seriously ill with pneumonia when she was only five years old. It was during this stage when she witnessed one of the scenes that would mark her future career. While she was in the hospital, one of her roommates died. It was then that she became aware of what death meant, as an inexorable part of life.

During her adolescence, the Second World War broke out.. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, at this time, worked in a refugee camp in her hometown. At the end of the war, she continued with this type of aid work in different European countries. Among them all, there was one that was another milestone for her; the Majdanek extermination camp in Poland, where Elisabeth Kübler-Ross learned a great deal about death, but also about compassion and resilience..

In that grim place, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross learned a lot about death, but also about compassion and resilience, through the experiences that survivors told her. This was probably one of the events that determined the direction her professional life would take in the future, and it would be none other than to look for ways to help others in the most difficult circumstances.

She combined different jobs, always in hospital contexts and even as a volunteer, while studying medicine at the University of Zurich. She completed this training in 1957. Only one year later, she married Emanuel Ross she married Emanuel Ross, whom she had met during her studies and who came from the USA, and they decided to move to the USA after their marriage..

Career development

Once in the USA, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was able to complete her medical residency, specializing in psychiatry, at a hospital in New York, the Manhattan Psychiatric Center. There she began to develop methodologies that would provide an alternative to the usual treatments received by patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or other serious conditions.

One of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's maxims was to work on a psychological level to increase the self-esteem and well-being of the inmates, as opposed to the use of medication.She also tried to facilitate contact between the inmates and their families, as opposed to the use of medication that was routinely used to stabilize moods. It also tried to facilitate the contact of the patients with the outside world and give them a close treatment.

In short, what he was trying to do was to humanize the way in which doctors related to patients, which was sometimes too cold and even cruel. To achieve her goal, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross developed an individualized care program. The success was undeniable. Almost all of the patients who participated in the program (94%) experienced some degree of improvement.

From New York he moved to Colorado, this time to teach at the university. The year was 1962. The central message he tried to get across to his students during this period was to behave with patients not only as scientists, but also and above all as human beings, and thus to understand how they were suffering from the disease.and to understand how they were feeling in really difficult times.

Development of palliative care program

In 1965, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross moved again, this time to Chicago. She supplemented her psychiatric training with an extensive program in psychoanalysis. She began working at the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago.It was here that she started a revolutionary program with terminally ill patients.

What Elisabeth did was to set up interviews where these people could talk to medical students. As a result, her popularity both in the medical field and outside of it became enormous. So much so that she he decided to give up teaching and focus on studies of the psychological processes associated with death, which was his field of expertise.which was the field in which she wanted to help.

In the 1970s, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross traveled the world, setting up palliative care programs in hospitals in more than twenty countries. She became the world's leading authority on the subject and was able to give lectures and interviews in the most prestigious places, presenting her ideas on the subject.

His ultimate goal was to ensure that all people could die with dignity, being respected and understood as the human beings they were.

Shanti Nilaya Foundation

But Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wanted to go a step further. That is why she decided to she decided to purchase a piece of land in the city of Escondido, California, to found a sanctuary called Shanti Nilaya, Home of Peace.. The purpose of this place was to serve as a place for very sick people, where they could be cured or have a peaceful transition from life to death.

The contact with so many people on the verge of death awakened another interest in Elisabeth, and it was precisely that of near-death experiences. Her greatest concern revolved around the testimonies of people who had been resuscitated by medical maneuvers. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wanted to know about her experiences during this trance between life and death.

However, the Shanti Nilaya the Shanti Nilaya center suffered a major setback in the wake of a scandal caused by a deception orchestrated by one of its collaborators, Jay Barham.. This man, who had founded the Church of the Face of Divinity, managed to convince the faithful that it was possible to contact the spirits of the dead through sexual relations. This scandal led to the breakup of Elisabeth with Barham and others.

Likewise, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's approach to concepts such as spiritism or out-of-body experiences was a setback for her reputation.. During this period, she published a book called On Death and the Dying, in which she recounted interviews with terminally ill people. Later he would publish other more polemic works, such as Sobre la vida después de la muerte (On life after death), or El túnel y la luz (The tunnel and the light), in line with his esoteric beliefs.

The stages of grief

Probably the greatest contribution of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was the creation of the model of the five stages of grief, also called the Kübler-Ross model.also called the Kübler-Ross model, included precisely in her work, On Death and the Dying. It is a theory that quickly gained enormous popularity, although it lacks a solid empirical basis.

What Elisabeth Kübler-Ross proposed with this model is that terminally ill patients, and anyone who is certain that he or she will die soon, go through a process divided into five phases or stages. The first of these is denial, and therefore they will refuse to believe that they are really going to die, thinking that it is a mistake or that something will somehow heal them.

The second is anger, anger at knowing that death is inevitable and therefore there is no remedy for his situation. The third is negotiation, trying to find a pact that would allow him to live longer. In fourth place, depression would come, the sadness in which they would sink when they would understand the inevitability of their situation.

Finally, the fifth stage would take place, which is none other than acceptance. The final acceptance that they are going to die, nothing can be done to avoid it, but in spite of this, they are fine.

Illness and final years

After initiating a number of other projects, such as the attempt to create a shelter for HIV-stricken children, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross suffered several strokes. suffered several strokes that led to the paralysis of half of her body. As a result, she was confined to a wheelchair.knowing that death, that phenomenon she had studied all her life, was approaching, this time for her. It was 1995, but she still had almost a decade to go.

Finally, in 2004, after living the last stage of her life in a nursing home in Scottsdale, Arizona, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross passed away at the age of 78. In the same place, her son, Ken Ross, created a foundation in her name.

Bibliographical references:

• Klass, D. (2005). Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: Facing Death. The Gerontologist.
• Kübler-Ross, E. (2017). On death and dying: Relief from psychological suffering. Penguin Random House.
• Kuczewski, M.G.. (2019). Everything I really needed to know to be a clinical ethicist, I learned from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. The American Journal of Bioethics. Taylor & Francis.