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2008 Calendar
May 14: Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution
Lecture: Seattle University
July 24-26: EBF Summer Institute - Patient-Directed Dying: Ethics and Care at Life's Ending
Conference: Seattle University
October 10-12: Fall Conference - UVTEC-II
Conference: Seattle
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Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution
May 14, Seattle University
Leonard Shlain, M.D.
Much of the fascination of Shlain's book Sex, Time, and Power is relevant to Becker concerning the differences between men and women's attitudes toward death. Men's need to be immortal through their children required them to build patriarchal cultures to ensure that they could control women's reproductive rights so that they could be sure the children were theirs.
Where: Seattle University, Library Auditorium
When: Wednesday, May 14, 7:30 p.m.
Co-Sponsors: Seattle U's Department of Psychology and the EBF
Information: Phone: (206) 232-2994, or email Neil Elgee
Leonard Shlain is a surgeon and writer whose intense curiosity about the human condition has led him to explore our insides all the way from circumscribed laparoscopic medical views to all-encompassing evolutionary universals. In addition to Sex, Time, and Power he has also authored Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time & Light and The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image. All three of his books have been national bestsellers and are presently used in universities around the world. He is the chief of laparoscopic surgery at California Medical Center in San Francisco.
The Ernest Becker Summer Institute
Patient Directed Dying: Ethics and Care at Life's Ending
Jointly sponsored by the Ernest Becker Foundation, the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University, and the Washington State Hospice and Palliative Care Organization
Welcome to the third biennial Ernest Becker Summer Institute. With hospice care firmly established as an appropriate mode of attending to the dying and palliative care expanding end of life treatment, this Institute seeks to provide a timely opportunity for helping professions to explore the implications of Becker's thought for care of the dying and deepen our understanding of the spiritual needs and resources of the dying in the midst of the emotional and medical complexity of life's ending. The Ernest Becker Summer Institute is intended to hospital and hospice chaplains, physicians, nurses, social workers, pastoral counselors, hospice workers, parish clergy, therapists and others interested in strengthening the spiritual dimensions of care at the time of death. The goals of the Becker Institute are:
- Enhance the care of the dying.
- Explore critical issues in end of life care.
- Introduce Ernest Becker's perspective on death to those who are unaware of his seminal insights on the existential dilemma of death in life.
- Examine the implications of Becker's thought for the care of the dying.
- Identify the spiritual dimensions of the dying process.
- Determine the ethical concerns at life's ending.
- Recognize and honor the richly diverse cultural and religious practices in death.
- Deepen our awareness of the ways in which the caregiver is transformed by their care of the dying.
You will have brought your own goals and expectations to this Institute. It is our hope that your expectations will be met and maybe even stretched a little in the program that will follows.
The theme of this Institute seeks to find ways to strengthen patient agency and direction at life's ending. An individual has agency when an action is fully his or her own. This focus on agency is not unlike the concern for patient autonomy in the medical management of death. The aim of this institute is to examine medical, spiritual, and ethical practices that will strengthen patient direction and make it possible live as fully as possible until death. The Institute will begin by considering human agency in general before moving to "patient directed living until we die" and finally "patient directed dying," personal agency when and how we die.
General information:
- Location:All the events of The Becker Institute will take place in Campion Ballroom in Campion Hall of Seattle University, 800 Broadway between Madison and Cherry.
- Reflective Worship, held the Chapel in Campion Hall on Friday and Saturday mornings, is inclusive of all spiritual perspectives.
- Bookstore:University Bookstore hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and 10:30 to 2 p.m. Saturday. A select number of books will be available in the Campion Ballroom.
- Registration:Regisration will be from 3 Ð 7 p.m. in Campion Ballroom. Early registration is $175. Late registration will be available following the Thursday evening lecture and from 8 to 9 a.m. on Friday morning in Campion Ballroom. You can print out registration forms here, or register online:
- Parking:Parking on the university campus is extremely limited. A per-day fee is charged for parking on campus. Public transportation is convenient and encouraged.
- Registered Nurses: WSHPCO (PA #56) is an approved provider of continuing education by the Washington State Nurses Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation. 5.75 contract hours are available and variable credits will be offered.
- Social Workers: This workshop has been approved for 5.75 CEUs by the Washington Chapter, National Association of Social Workers (NASW) for Licensed Social Workers, Licensed Marriage & Family Therapists and Licensed Mental Health Counselors. Provider number is #1975-153. Chaplains may also use these CEUs.
Program:
| Thursday, July 24 |
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| 4:00 p.m.: |
Flight from Death - Award-winning documentary film
This film is an excellent introduction to major themes in Becker’s perspective for participants in the Institute who are unfamiliar with Ernest Becker’s thought. It exposes the pervasiveness of death denial in this society and probes some of the questions faced at the point of death. The film is 90 minutes long so there will be time for dinner following. |
| Dinner on your own |
In your packet, there are suggested places for eating, including the cafeteria in the Student Center. |
| 7:00 p.m.: |
Keynote Address: Death Be Not Proud: What Can Be Chosen of Life in Our Dying Margaret A. Farley, Ph.D. Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics Emerita at Yale Divinity School and formerly Co-director of the Yale University Center of Interdisciplinary Bioethics.
Response: Tom Preston, M.D. Retired Cardiologist, Seattle, Washington and author of Patient-Directed Dying: A Call for Legalized Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill.
The emphasis on agency or patient direction in dying is informed by a paradoxical view of death as both actively achieved and passively suffered. When this paradoxical view of death as act and fate is applied to those who are irreversibly dying, it supports the importance of agency in the process of living and dying to the end of a life. What is the meaning of death in life and living in dying? How we answer this question is important for both patients and caregivers. |
| Reception |
(People attending this lecture only will be asked to make a $10 contribution.) |
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| Friday, July 25 |
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| 8:30 a.m.: |
Reflective Worship (Chapel) |
| 9:00 a.m.: |
Plenary Presentation: Death Be Not Humble: What Can Be Chosen of Death in Our Living Margaret A. Farley, Ph.D.
What are choices the people need to be able to make when faced with a life-threatening illness? What must all caregivers know about the process of moral or ethical decision making in order to provide faithful care at life's ending? This plenary will lay out ethical distinctions and ways of thinking about decisions regarding death and dying in a medical context. The presentation will include a case study. |
| 10:45 a.m.: |
Break |
| 11:15 a.m.: |
Prelude to Conversation: Patient-Directed Living Until We Die: Religious and Cultural Perspectives James Green, Ph.D. Antrhopologist and author of Beyond the Good Death: The Anthropology of Modern Dying
This presentation will introduce a framework for the table conversations over lunch about religious and cultural perspectives on death and dying. |
| 12:15 p.m.: |
Table Conversations Over Lunch about a Case Lunch provided as part of registration
Introduction to the case by Cynthia Tomik, ASW, LICSW |
| 1:30 p.m.: |
Panel Conversation
A panel representing a variety of ethnic and religious perspectives will respond to the questions that have emerged from the table conversations over lunch. The aim of this session is to expand our awareness of the religious and cultural perspectives that inform and/or limit choices that patients might make regarding living until they die. |
| 3:00 p.m.: |
Break |
| 3:15 p.m.: |
Plenary Presentation: Patient-Directed Living until We Die: Institutional Factors Thomas R. McCormick, Department of Medical History and Ethics, University of Washington School of Medicine and Wayne McCormick, M.D. Section Chief, UWAMC Long Term Care, Harborview Medical Center. Convener: Erika J. Campbell, Ed.D. Candidate, Seattle University
Even when patients and families and medical staff are of one mind about how to empower agency in the patient who is dying, there are institutional factors (both religious and medical) that block or impede our best intentions. |
| 4:45 p.m.: |
Reflections from Ernest Becker Daniel Liechty, Ph.D.
The intent of this brief time at the end of the day is to make connections between what has been said during the day and the work and perspectives of Ernest Becker. |
| Dinner on your own |
In your packet, there are suggested places for eating, including the cafeteria in the Student Center. |
| 6:30 p.m.: |
Coffee and Dessert |
| 7:30 p.m.: |
Charisma, a play, by Margaret Shafer and Hope Wechkin, directed by Joanne Ward, and performed by Hope Wechkin |
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| Saturday, July 26 |
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| 8:30 a.m.: |
Reflective Worship (Chapel) |
| 9:00 a.m.: |
Plenary Presentation: Dying in the Age of Medical Management: Who Decides How We Die? Tom Preston, M.D. retired Cardiologist, Seattle, Washington and author of Patient-Directed Dying: A Call for Legalized Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill.
Response: Margaret A. Farley, Ph.D. Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics Emerita at Yale Divinity School.
How is "patient-directed dying" similar to and different from "physician assisted suicide"? What ethical questions are raised by "patient-directed dying" must be addressed at life's ending? In some religious contexts, it is taught that God gives life and therefore only God can take life. How does a perspective of natural death help with decision-making when death is near? |
| 10:30 a.m.: |
Coffee Break |
| 10:45 a.m.: |
Conversation about Patient-Directed Dying
Conference participants will be invited into a structured conversation about the theme of this Institute. The aim of the process will be to help each individual identify his or her own perspective on agency in living and dying and determine how a ‘patient-directed' approach to dying would influence or even change the work we do. |
| 12:00 p.m.: |
Closing Reflections The Rev. Herbert Anderson, Ph.D. Institute planning coordinater |
| 12:30 p.m.: |
Adjourn |
The Ernest Becker Summer Institute seeks to provide an opportunity for helping professionals to explore the implications of Becker's thought for care of the dying. For further information about the Ernest Becker Foundation, call (206) 232-2994 or email nelgee@u.washington.edu.
EBF website supports chapters
The Ernest Becker Foundation wants to help you publicize your local Ernest Becker chapter and Web site. We will list you on our EBF Chapters page and provide links to your Web pages. If you would like technical information on developing a Web site, please email Neil Elgee.
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Download Sheldon Solomon Introduction to Becker
