Avery D. Weisman,M.D.: An Omega Interview

Avery D. Weisman, M.D., a distinguished contributor to the study of the human encounter with death, discusses both the personal and professional facets of his long and productive career. Although aware of the fragility of life even as a child and exposed to death through his training in neurology, psychiatry, and pathology, Weisman found that nothing in medical school had prepared him for dealing with terminal patients. As a psychiatric consultant in a hospital, he observed that some seriously ill patients seemed inclined or “predilected” to death, while others did not. Furthermore, some deaths seemed to be “good” or “appropriate” and others not. With his interest in the psychosocial side of death stimulated by these experiences, Weisman embarked on a many-faceted quest for understanding the ways in which people live with the prospect of death. “I think there was something special about looking over the edge between existence and nonexistence that fascinated me.” His concepts of appropriate death and middle knowledge, and his use of the psychological autopsy technique are reviewed, as well as the findings of Project Omega, a clinical research study that Weisman directed for eighteen years.