For several decades, psychiatrists who work with the dying have been trying to come up with new psychotherapies that can help people cope with the reality of their death. One of these therapies asks the dying to tell the story of their life.

This end of life treatment, called dignity therapy, was created by a man named Harvey Chochenoff. When Chochenoff was a young psychiatrist working with the dying, he had a really powerful experience with one of the patients he was trying to counsel, a man with an inoperable brain tumor.

“One of the last times that I went into his room to meet with him, on his bedside table was a photograph of him when he had indeed been young and healthy and a body builder, and it was this incredible juxtaposition of these two images,” says Chochenoff.

So in the bed there’s his patient — this skeleton of a man — very pale and weak. On the bedside table, there’s this image, this portrait of a glistening muscled giant. And Chochenoff says that sitting there, it was very clear to him that by placing this photograph in such a prominent position, the man was sending a message: This was how he needed to be seen.

As Chochenoff continued his work with the dying, he confronted this again and again: this need people have to assert themselves in the face of death. And he started to wonder about it.

“Why is it that how people perceive themselves to be seen should have such a profound influence? How does that make sense? What does that mean?” says Chochenoff.

To read or hear more click on: http://www.npr.org/2011/09/12/140336146/for-the-dying-a-chance-to-rewrite-life