Big Breakout Sessions

Death Cafes

Ann Casement (BJAA)

The topic of this presentation is death cafes that are springing up around the UK. People gather there for coffee, cake and conversation about their own mortality, for instance, whether they want anyone with them when they are dying, or whether they wish to be resuscitated. Death is the taboo topic in the USA, and, increasingly, in other parts of the world which, if carried to an absurd degree, could see Freud’s Death Drive being renamed the passing away drive. Citations to the literature on the greatest archetype of all include Schopenhauer, Jung, Heidegger and Becker.