Spirituality, Death Anxiety, Transliminality among Middle Aged Adults

Introduction Spirituality connotes the selfs existential search for ultimate meaning through an individualized understanding of the sacred (Atchley, 1997, Roof, 1993, 1999, Tillich, 1963). Death anxiety is a feeling of dread, apprehension or solicitude (anxiety) when one thinks of the process of dying, or ceasing to be. (Farley G, 2010). Transliminality is defined as a hypothetical tendency for psychological material to cross (trans) thresholds (limines) into or out of consciousness (Thalbourne& Houran, 2000). Atchley tried to use a nonreligious approach to describe spirituality as deep inner silence, insight, compassions, connection with the ground of being, transcendence of personal self, wonder, transformation, and a concept that sensitizes us to a region of human experience and tells us generally what to look for in that region. (Lavretsky, 2010). Jung (1943, 1964) argued that around midlife individuals typically begin to turn inward to explore the more spiritual aspect of the self. (Wink& Dillon, 2002). Statistically significant correlation was found between middle adulthood and death anxiety. (Nivya, Keerthi, Ajayan& Pavithra, 2013). Previous researches have studied how spirituality, death anxiety and transliminality individually play a role in middle adulthood. The objective of this study is to find the relationship between spirituality, transliminality and death anxiety among middle adulthood men and women. Methodology Cross sectional research designwas used. Using purposive sampling techniques, a sample of 110 middle aged men and women (50 men and 60 women) of age ranging from 40-60 were selected. Tools used in the study to collect the data were Spirituality scale (Bindhu& Swaminathan, 2007), Death Anxiety scale (Templer, D. , 1970) and Revised Transliminality Scale (Lange, R. , Thalbourne, MA. , Houran, J. , Storm, L. , 2000). Result Karl Pearson product moment correlation wasl be used to find out the relationship. Independent sample t test was used to find out the difference between men and women. It was found that there was significant relationship between Spirituality and death anxiety. Also, it was found that the relationship of transliminality with spirituality and death anxiety was not significant. No difference in all three dimensions were found between males and females of middle adulthood.