REACTION TO EXTREME STRESS: IMPENDING DEATH BY EXECUTION
HARVEY BLUESTONE M.D., and
CARL L. MCGAHEE M.D.
Traditional ego defense mechanisms alleviate distress. They also mitigate anxiety and depression which would otherwise overwhelm the prisoner in a death cell. Some psychiatrists allege that the death fear (whether on the battlefield or in the death house) serves as an irrational surrogate for some other fear–such as castration. This over-simplified explanation does scant justice to the inescapable certainty shared by all, but anticipated only by man.
