The End-of-Life Phase as Part of the Lifespan: The Self, Health, Future-Time Model

Abstract In lifespan developmental psychology (Baltes, 1987), development is conceptualized as a lifelong process that occurs from conception to death. Every life phase has its own challenges and opportunities. End of life has been largely neglected as a separate life period. Our ultimate goal is to define and synthesize the experience of end of life in order to establish a theoretical understanding of end of life as a developmental life phase. We first explore the challenges with defining end of life; next, we propose a subjective approach to examine end of life: the Self, Health, and Future-Time (SHiFT) model; and finally, we provide limitations and future directions for our SHiFT model. End of life is a complex, dynamic process that is shaped by an individual’s context. We recognize the end of life is a shared experience among people who are dying; we acknowledge this phase is a unique, meaningful part of the lifespan. We encourage further exploration of our model and empirical investigation of the three components (i.e., self, health, and future-time).