The Concept of Psychological Death: Its Causes and Impact

In the movie (Collateral beauty) by Will Smith, the hero loses his only daughter in a painful accident, and this causes him a trauma that made him lose any desire to live. He breathes, eats, drinks, and says a few words now and then, but if we can get past the literal meaning of the word, we can say without hesitation that he was like a living corpse.

On the other hand, we find that we often use in our daily lives the phrase “looks dead” if we want to describe a person who lives their life without any desire or interaction with their surroundings, putting every feeling or emotion on the shelf.

The subject is really more than an idea in a movie or a metaphor that we use, but rather a case diagnosed in psychology, which sees that a person does not die once.  The term psychological death refers to the person who reaches a great degree of despair that prevents them from continuing their life, as they reach a high degree of internal boredom that makes them feel that nothing deserves life, as there is no motivation for all, and the desire dies and any response fades with the external environment until they finally reach their final death.

If you want to know more information about this condition and its causes, and whether it is possible to bring the psychologically dead person back to life again and return the passion to them, continue reading.

First: What Is It? What are Its Symptoms and Causes?

A person does not choose when to die physically, but in some way, they can go themself to their psychological death, as it is a state similar to the withdrawal of the individual completely from the life they live and no longer satisfy them, but otherwise it has become a heavy burden that they are no longer able to bear. It is a great desire to escape from reality to death, which at that moment appears the only way to rest.

The truth of the previous words is not only metaphorical because the power of the mind over man is much greater than we can expect. Many psychological and medical studies have even talked about this situation in which a person dies for mental and emotional reasons until the person actually reaches organic death after a period without the presence of an organic defect or a physical medical condition that reaches to death.

It is worth noting that there is no relationship between psychological death and depression. Although it occurs in some way by the person’s will, this case is not considered suicide. This was confirmed by John Leach, who conducted a study published on the “Science Direct” website. "The act of giving up life and death usually within days before the actual death, a very real condition whose occurrence is often associated with acute trauma."

Psychological death is a different response to the difficult circumstances of a person in their life and harsh feelings that exceed their ability to bear. There is a part in the brain that is responsible for a person’s motivation and for organizing their information and thoughts so that their behavior is directed to achieve a specific goal, and this speech includes the innately normal human being's motive for survival.

Severe trauma causes a defect in this part called the anterior cingulate circuit located under the cerebral cortex, and this causes a person to lose their motivation to survive, so their thoughts, behaviors, and feelings all now have one goal, which is not to continue living.

Symptoms of Psychological Death:

In order to be certain that a person has died psychologically, a number of symptoms and signs must appear on them, and we can say in another way that these symptoms are the stages that a person goes through before declaring their psychological death:

1. Isolation:

As a result of the trauma they received, the person is no longer able to communicate with others or interact with them, and this is what prompts them to withdraw and isolate themself from everyone. The feelings that are supposed to affect them and push them to interact with their surroundings no longer exist because they have reached the stage of a complete lack of emotion and feelings.

2. Indifference:

As a result of the state of emotional indifference that a person has reached, they lose their ability to interact with anything, no matter how important it is, and they treat everything that surrounds them with indifference, even in the case of normal life matters, like bathing, eating, and doing business, everything now has no taste or color, even if it was previously a reason for happiness.

3. Loss of Motivation:

Nothing arouses a person's desire to continue, and any decision, no matter how simple, is a heavy burden on them, and they cannot do it. The matter is not only a loss of energy, but a complete loss of the mental content that is essential in making decisions. Here, it must be noted that the internal incentive to live no longer exists, but it is possible to intervene and give an external incentive to the person to help them overcome their condition, and the sooner the intervention, the more feasible.

4. Inactivity:

A person loses the ability to control the muscles of their body, and they lose their activity completely, and things may reach the point of not caring to sit with their dirt in the same place.

5. Psychological Death:

It is like an announcement by this person of their psychological death, as they have lost all desire, feeling, and motivation to continue.

Second: What are the Causes and Types of Psychological Death?

As we mentioned above, strong psychological trauma, severe suffering, severe experiences, or the loss of important and influential people in our lives may reach us to the state of psychological death, then real death after that, which occurs through a heart response to the pressure of those emotions, the response can be by the occurrence of a heart attack, for example. But psychologically, the main reason is the loss of motivation to live.

Types of Psychological Death:

As we have seen psychological death is due to several reasons, the most important of which is the intense sadness and betrayal that the person suffers from, but in addition to that, other reasons were discovered that lead to the same result and cause the state of psychological death. We find three other types of psychological death:

1. Death as Expected:

This death occurs as a result of the person’s assumption and expectation of their inevitable death, and we can mention here the story of the two soldiers who were captured during the Second World War, when they were deluded that the water falling on them from the ceiling contained poisonous gas. They died because of the tension and fear that afflicted them. The water that came down on them was clean, and there was no gas in it.

It can also be mentioned the story of the man who boarded the train secretly because he did not have enough money for the ticket price, only to discover later that he was in the meat refrigerator trailer, and after several attempts he surrendered to his reality and died as a result of feeling cold, which was only present in his imagination because the refrigerator had stopped working two weeks ago. This story has been covered in cinema and television.

2. Voodoo:

It is the death that occurs as a result of a person’s belief that they have broken a taboo, or approached sacred things, or that they are under the influence of black magic. This death only affects those who believe in it.

3. Death Due to Separation of The Child from Their Parents (Hospitalization):

The separation of the child from their parents causes the child to feel a lot of anxiety, sadness, and intense fear due to their sense of loss of safety, and this explains the death of many children in the camps after losing their family members.

Third: Is It Possible to Overcome the State of Psychological Death?

Despite the severity of this condition and its control over the patient's life to the point that it causes real death for them later, providing assistance to the psychologically deceased person is still possible, especially in its early stages.

In the following, we will present a set of useful strategies in this:

• Above all, the person must be helped to accept the trauma that has caused them this condition, and to overcome the painful situation, however difficult it is. Also, we must not allow these people to withdraw permanently from social life, but without pressure on them to the point of harming them more than benefiting them.
• You should also extend a helping hand to them and help them return to their usual activities, by participating with them at the beginning and motivating them to return to their practice and helping them complete their accumulated work.
• The goal is the motive that makes any person want to live, and when the goal is lost, the person loses the compass, and in their case, this is exactly what happened, which is the loss of the goal. Therefore, we must stand by them until they find another purpose for their lives, and we must not let them suffer this state of loss alone, and we must restore the desire to live in some way.
• Informing them of the experiences of other people who have reached a similar situation. It may be useful to hear the stories of people who have lost loved ones, share their feelings, and search for meaning from life in this same loss. Cruel experiences are not only a cause of frustration, sadness, and pain, but they are also a reason to bring out another strong human being who lives within us.
• Persuading the person who is going through the stage of psychological death to visit a specialized doctor, undergo treatment sessions, and take mood-improving and calming drugs.

In Conclusion:

Perhaps if we had heard the concept of psychological death before, it would have been very surprising, but unfortunately some of the tragic circumstances that began to sweep the world from nearly ten years ago until now, and with the spread of the Corona pandemic also, which made the matter worse in terms of narrowing more on people, especially in economic and psychological terms. The state of psychological death, if we did not know it as a term, we would certainly know it as the cases of many people who passed in our lives during these years, some of whom were even close to us.

All this brings us back to only one thing, which is the need to take care of our mental health. This is because a strong and solid person from within will be more able to face the difficult circumstances they are going through, and their endurance will be higher than others.