Cocoon and the Butterfly, The
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, M.D., is the woman who has transformed the way the world thinks about death and dying. Beginning with the groundbreaking publication of the classic psychological study On Death and Dying, through her many books and her years working with terminally ill children, AIDS patients and the elderly, Kubler-Ross has brought comfort and understanding to millions coping with their own deaths or the deaths of loved ones. From her work in war-ravaged Poland to her pioneering counseling of the terminally ill, to her legendary seminars on death and dying at the University of Chicago, to her eye-opening discussions with those who had been revived after death, each experience provided Kubler-Ross with a piece of the puzzle. In a culture determined to sweep death under a carpet and hide it there, Kubler-Ross consistently defied common wisdom to bring it into the light and hold it there for us to see and not be afraid.
In The Cocoon and the Butterfly, drawing on thousands of accounts of "near death experiences" that she has accumulated over the years from persons of all ages and circumstances, Dr. Ross develops the image of the butterfly's emergence from a cocoon as a symbol for the new beginning that such experiences portend for us when we die.
