Death and Adjustment Hypotheses

Death and Adjustment Hypotheses are a pair of multidimensional theories on the natural but neglected phenomenon of death. While dealing with death as a natural phenomenon for the every individual in society, the hypotheses abandon the focus on the endpoint of death or dying, and instead deal with death as an ongoing process or state.

Mohammad Samir Hossain, an Asian mental health researcher and physician from Bangladesh, developed the hypotheses. They were published in full in the Biomedical social science theory book, Quest for a New Death: Death and Adjustment Hypotheses, written on the subject of death and dying by Professor Hossain. Immediately after the complete publication, a review was accepted for publication in the journal Death Studies. It describes the book as a pacemaker in one important movement in science with a potentially different sort of impact on civilization, giving death centrality for human life. It proposed a different concept of the phenomenon of death for scientific and educational use than the prevailing scientific concept. Later, follow-up research indicated that the implementation of the primary hypothesis requires establishment of some additional changes in human attitude. A second hypothesis was then developed as a complementary part of the primary one. In the latest version, the primary hypothesis is upgraded to Part One of the hypotheses and its supplementary part became the Part Two.

Death and Adjustment Hypothesis (primary version)

In the first version, the hypothesis had the following postulated:

Declaration

"We should not take death as an absolute end for one. Concept of death, as an absolute end to existence, is epistemologically wrong and neither scientifically supported nor opposed. Practically it is troublesome. We should, of course, take death as something significant but also remember that it does not bring absolute end to existence. Concept of death, as not an absolute end to existence, is epistemologically correct and neither scientifically supported nor opposed. The second concept also proves itself to be superior than the first one in the context of rationality and practical utility. So we deserve a better life with this better concept . For this purpose, we must carefully keep this concept in use for scientific and educational activities, i.e. defining the phenomenon of death."

Stages of adjustment with death (for average healthy adults)
The stages of adjustment with death for any average person described by Professor M S Hossain are

# Dissociation
# Denial
# Anger
# Bargaining
# Depression
# Acceptance

Twenty-first century attitude

"The twenty first century attitude towards death, on an average, is dissociation."

Death and Adjustment Hypotheses
In the secondary version, the single hypothesis turned to a pair of hypotheses due to the addition of a new hypothesis as the second part. The followings represent the part I & II of the hypotheses.
Death and Adjustment Hypotheses, Part - I
Declaration

"Phenomenon of death, for the purpose of scientific and educational activity, should not be regarded or defined as something that brings absolute end to one’s existence. Rather it should be regarded as an important event in every human’s life that is mandatory for all as a rule of nature. This will not only conceptualize death perfectly, but also help its healthy accommodation in our life."

Death and Adjustment Hypotheses, Part - II
Declaration

"Restraining the desire for materialistic life by the adoption of morality is needed for satisfactory accommodation of the persistence of existence after death concept that should further lead to a healthy accommodation of the phenomenon of death."

Integrated declaration of the Death and adjustment hypotheses (I & II)

"Our current stance about death, based on the perception of permanent cessation of existence, has no scientific basis. Epistemologically, it is a wrong information. The opposite perception denoting existence after death is scientifically unapproachable, but epistemologically acceptable when approached. The perception of ceasing to exist is also unhealthy and causing continuous harmful changes at personal and social levels. Thus, as a natural consequence, healthy accommodation of the phenomenon of death in our life is practically absent. So death, at least for the purpose of scientific and educational activities, should be regarded or defined as something very significant that does not necessarily bring absolute end to one’s existence. View towards moral attitude is strongly connected to such practical improvement in the concept. Adoption of stronger morality by restraining the desire for materialistic life can lead to a satisfactory accommodation of the ‘persistence of existence after death’ concept; because, historically, negative attitude towards ‘moral ethics in life’ was the main factor that provoked significant deterioration in the concept and attitude towards death. Adoption of this methodologically redefined concept of death should lead us to a better and healthy attitude with a healthy accommodation of ‘death’ in life. Also it might help to arrest the deteriorating changes in our civilization."

Death Adjustment Disorder (DAD)

Based on the Death and Adjustment Hypotheses, this new diagnosis has been proposed in the same publication containing the hypotheses. It mainly covers the pathological patterns of adjustment with the phenomenon of death assessed with the help of DRS Scale. Scores from 3 to 6 in DRS Scale indicates a positive diagnosis of DAD in a person. However, this diagnosis is at the stage of proposal and no approval from the authorities like APA or WHO has been obtained in support of it until now.

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