Swiss psychiatrist and author who is noted for her work with death and the dying. Her first book, “On Death and Dying,” 1969, introduced the five stages of dying; denial, isolation, anger, bargaining and depression, before acceptance; all efforts to maintain power over one’s own death. Throughout her life, she has assisted perhaps 20,000 people through their transition into an afterlife. With total belief in the continuity of life spirit through the experience of death, she hit upon a ground breaking method of counseling, listening to the patient first and then continuing with the medical techniques.
Kübler-Ross was the first born of triplet girls, a mere two pounds with survival uncertain. She was almost an alter ego to her identical triplet Erika who was very sick as a teenager. At 18 she left home alone to see what she could do for the war-ravaged people of France and then Poland. Against the wishes of her father she struggled to become a physician. Her dad was a tyrannical bureaucrat who refused to recognize her desire to become a doctor, starting her lifetime of bucking authority. When she finished school and would not go to work for her dad, he threw her out of the house. She spent years working as a lab assistant while going to medical school. As WW II ended, she did volunteer work through ravaged Europe. As a young doctor, she married Emanuel Ross, an American neuropathologist. Following two miscarriages, they had a son, Ken, 1960; two more miscarriages and a daughter, Barbara, 1964.
At the hospital where she worked, she was most affected by the dismissal and lack of support for terminal patients. With her determination and dedication, she brought many of them back to health. Eventually she was drawn to those most truly abandoned by our society, namely the dying.
At the University of Colorado, Kübler-Ross began lecturing about the process of dying. By the time the family moved to Chicago, her lectures were attracting standing-room-only. She felt strongly that people often clung to life because of unfinished business and once they brought their affairs into order, making amends, saying goodbyes and concluding their mundane arrangements, that they could have a peaceful, even happy death. Her impact was revolutionary. Though a world- traveler for her lectures, her personal style offended many. Certainly inspirational and indisputably charismatic, she was also known as abrasive and critical of the medical profession. Her compassion and love of humanity shone through, but her detractors found her downright arrogant.
When she went public with her belief in the spirit world and in the late ’70s began speaking of her own “spooks,” the medical establishment labeled her a kook. Over the years, she reported several out-of-body experiences, including two near-death events (due to a bowel obstruction, and to cardiac fibrillation). She personally reported on the light, the peace, the overwhelming love of the experiences. During one endless night of agony, she felt that she was reliving the deaths of all her patients, and after going through the pain and fear, emerged with cosmic consciousness.
Kübler-Ross was an ardent hiker, mountain climber and skier. She admitted to a short fuse, great highs and lows and an overly idealistic nature. She had an excellent memory, nearly total recall, and she was a workaholic. In 1979 she caused concern amongst her colleagues with her interests in the occult. She began an association with medium Rev. Jay Barham and his wife, Marti, whom she had first met in 1976, to combine their work in counseling and therapy. Kubler-Ross persuaded her husband, Manny, to purchase a 42-acre compound to use as a site for healing. The Barham method included psychodrama, sex, trances and séances, vivid cult components. Through public and professional disapproval, Kubler reevaluated her connection with the Barhams, but not after her husband asked for a divorce from their 21-year-marriage.
After making a clean break with Barham, her San Diego house burned to the ground. Investigators suspected arson but no charges were ever filed. She then bought a 300-acre farm in the Shenandoah Valley, moving in 1984. When she announced that she was adopting 20 AIDS babies, this house was also torched, burning all her possessions, pictures, papers, memories. Her pet llama was shot. Again, no charges were filed. At this point, her son whisked her off to Arizona, afraid for her safety.
As soon as she was settled, she had the first of a series of strokes that left her incapacitated and massively frustrated. Confined to a wheelchair in 1996, she smoked and fumed that the only thing that worked was her brain. In 2000, she collaborated with David Kessler on her last book, “Life Lessons,” on life and living. In her 30 years of work she gained international renown as a pioneer in her field, transforming the medical profession’s attitudes toward a once taboo subject. Her books have sold millions, translated into 20 languages, and her most influential ideas have helped transform medicine.
She considered death a graduation and when her time came to pass on, she “graduated” with honors. The great lady who had made so many contributions to humanity died on 24 August 2004 at 8:15 PM in Scottsdale, Arizona, according to her son. “My mom died tonight at 8:15. My sister and I were there as well as 2 other family friends. She went very peacefully though it was still terribly sad of course. She had been slipping since last Thursday and had not spoken or eaten since then.”
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