José González (Madrid, 1980), a psychologist specializing in the dueling process, is afraid of death. He’s not the only one. In the training he gives to psychologists, thanatologists, or palliative care workers, he asks them to write their own end of death. At that moment, a way around this problem appeared. They laugh, followed by looks of disbelief and questions like “How many years has it been?” The reason is obvious. “Because we are death-phobic.” “We all know what our hopes are in life on a macro level. And on a micro level, which woman in my family will die at what age? From cancer at 80 years old. At Los Hombres, at 75 del Corazon. It’s not that difficult to calculate the end of your death. If you know when the mortgage is due or when the child will pay off the bulk of the edad, how can you not look at it?” he asks.
If we’ve learned anything after training experts from different countries and treating over 20,000 patients, it’s why society tends to avoid death. “We are children with a hand on our backs, with unpleasant emotions that need to be passed and digested in order to overcome the loss,” asserted the coordinator of the Psychologos Sin Fronteras dueling program in an interview at the Madrid Psychiatric Hospital. Difficulty naming a child’s loss is an example of this phobia. “If I lose my father, I become a pauper. If I lose my wife, I become a widow. If I lose a child, I don’t have a name. It gives us so much fear that we don’t give it a name.”
Humans are not born with death phobia. This fear appears in childhood. “I lost my mother and I won’t take my children to the thanatorio. I won’t go unpunished because I’m avoiding the ritual with the old man and the deho. What does it take to take my children to the wedding without taking them to the thanatorio? It’s the same. They are rituals from one step to the next,” says Gonzalez, who received an award at the World Summit on Psychotrauma in September 2025 for his work. This tendency to deprive minors of the opportunity to duel is contrasted with the losses that minors are sure to experience throughout their lives: “We overprotect our children. That’s not true. All of this is a duel. What a duel it is to embrace change.”
All cultures “need rituals to prepare for loss.” During his confinement, “I didn’t get a tan, I didn’t have this ritual.” For this reason, virtual wakes and funerals have started. “For an avoidant person like you, if my father died and I was incarcerated, it would certainly cost much more to connect with those unpleasant emotions, but it would be necessary to resolve that loss. Anger, anger, sadness, anger, guilt… If you could go to the Tannery and hug me 100 times, you would have 100 opportunities to connect with those unpleasant emotions, one way or the other,” he explains.
In addition to involving children in these rituals, experts recommend explaining that death is a part of life and affects all living things: “We all die someday.” “This means that when my children say to me, ‘Oh, Papa, El Abuelo is dead, Mama is dying, you are dying, I am dying,’ I should celebrate him because he has integrated this concept, instead of scaring him by thinking that he will be traumatized by her death,” he comments. He also advises talking about the irreversibility of death, saying, “The abuser’s body stops functioning. It’s not like a tablet that can be recharged, it’s like something that breaks and doesn’t come back together.” When this concept is not clearly communicated, pleas like the abuser’s to come back “for Christmas and my celebrations” occur.
Children must also know that they have “nothing to do with the cause of death.” The flaw is “humanity’s kryptonite” and accounts for “over 50% of the content of Duel Therapy sessions.” It creates a “false sense of control”. “If we find a possible answer to why the father doesn’t die, then we have the illusion that the rest of us won’t die.” While the couple is separated, patients may wonder why they broke up with the couple, with the illusion that “the next couple won’t leave either.”
Behind many cases of anxiety and depression, “there is an elaborate duel.” Experts say duels are one of the most common triggers for suicide. According to the World Health Organization, 727,000 people end their lives each year, and many more are planning to end their lives. “Humans commit suicide because they cannot tolerate suffering that produces loss. The outburst can be the death of a loved one, a rift in a marriage, a duel with health, a chronic illness, or a duel in status.” Therefore, he asserts that preparing for a duel in a sane manner becomes “a factor that prevents suicide.”
“I got shot in the chest.”
The death of a loved one can sometimes tear you apart in your heart. Singers like Rosalene and Dan Reynolds describe the feeling as a “bullet in the chest” or an “abyss,” but Ed Sheeran hopes there’s “time to visit” in the sky. In order to process a sense of loss, it is essential to connect with emotions such as sadness, boredom, and sadness, and in the process, “natural” emotions emerge. “I break up with my girlfriend and go to a young couple’s wedding, but most of all my cousin forgets that I just left and wants to make the food taste bad. I get annoyed when I see pictures of my sister-in-law being embarrassed and pictures from her first birthday party.”
González has experience in dueling, so he knows what he’s talking about. His priest died in captivity. Even if you are an expert in these processes, realize that it can be uncomfortable. “Soiun” voyeur Of this emotion. “You’re drawn to it because you know it’s useful, but it also pushes you to fight your own duels,” Señara said. Psychologists explain that some people turn to addictions to social networks, sex, food, alcohol, sports, work, etc. to avoid this connection to pain. Hiding difficult emotions is also common. The psychologist remembers the impression he shared with a friend. On the planet we were drinking wine and beer and having fun. ”
“We have to remember that negative emotions have to be removed and hidden,” says Gonzalez. Some professionals, even those with no training in dueling, focus on things that are still useful in their lives. Examples include “I have children, I like sports and work, and I like salt.” In reality, however, the duel becomes an unpleasant emotion, “containing what is missing in what remains.” “That’s as crazy as if I were a medical oncologist and I said, ‘I think your tumor is on the right track, but I’m not going to do the right thing. It’s not going to get cancer. I’m going to treat it right away. That’s a deadly oncologist.'”
A common mistake when accompanying a person experiencing a duel is to try to stop the pain. Gonzalez cites the example of Lupe, a mother who lost her 6-year-old daughter. If she is crying, reaching out is a “mistake” and will send the implicit message that she will “cut off her emotions” or “dry her tears.” What it entails is “enabling the person to transition into what they are legitimately experiencing.” Experts liken it to attending to someone who is vomiting. Vomiting is not induced, but it is not prevented. You put your hand on your shoulder, stay silent, and give yourself permission to take out what you need to let out.
Memories box and other tips
According to experts, it is fundamental to guarantee the “umbilical cord” between the patient and the deceased, and “many chronic duels who remain frozen serve this function, such as by maintaining the house as a sanctuary or visiting the cemetery every day.” Instead of storing all your clothes, psychologists advise choosing “10 things that connect me to my loved one” and creating a memory box. For example, “A necklace worn on a festival day, a watch, or something I taught myself to wear soccer cleats.” I also recommend writing a biography and starting to define your “10 Chapter Titles.” “My priest’s first name is ‘Niño de Postoguerra’, because he was born at that time. The second is ‘Monagillo a la Fuerza’, because he didn’t have money to study, so I had to join a religious order.”
In the process of dueling, it is not about forgetting. “I don’t want to forget my father’s laughter when I did it or when he sang it. I want to remember it with sustainable sadness.” Planning what the absentee will say about current issues is also a way to build a “continuous loop.” “My abusers will say they died on the internet, on WhatsApp, or in the wars in Ukraine or Gaza,” he declares.
It is also important to “value the connection with all living things.” Dr. Gonzalez recommends that patients imagine that they only have “10 months” to live and think “10 things are going to happen.” The answer may be “little things” like “spending time with my kids, playing with them, and dancing at the end.” Basically, it is an activity that can be carried out even from this afternoon. This is because what they are most concerned about is “spending their time in peace with the people they want to meet.”
If the duel becomes complicated, it is best to consult a specialist. “We are a cube of sick people vomiting. You don’t have to worry about me. You have to let out all the rage, anger, rage, sadness, guilt that if you leave this oasis you will not be allowed to go out into society. Because you have to be a mother or a journalist or a couple.” The duel over the death of a son can be especially complicated. Experts say many couples end up in divorce. “No” is not a sequiaran, but because “they detail the pain in a different way.” The same thing happens within families and groups of friends. González thus argues for normalizing the diversity of dueling forms. Each person lives not as they wish, but as they can.
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