At the Threshold: Supporting Individuals Considering and Pursuing Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD)
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Authors
Patenaude, Andrea
Issue Date
2025-04-13
Type
Capstone
Language
en
Keywords
medical assistance in dying , dying , euthanasia , end of life , counselling , existential , meaning , dignity , suffering , acceptance , Canada , decision making , psychosocial , palliative , chronic illness , terminal illness , grief , institutional trauma , interventions , needs assessment , scope of practice
Alternative Title
Abstract
The recent scholarship on MAiD in Canada highlights the need for MAiD-specific psychosocial support for recipients and their supporters, yet there is limited guidance for counsellors wishing to fill that need. This capstone project addresses the question of how counselling professionals can best support individuals who are considering and choosing to pursue MAiD in Canada. Based on a narrative integrative approach to reviewing the academic literature, this capstone sought to understand the nature and phenomenology of the suffering that leads people to consider MAiD, to characterize the experiential elements of choosing MAiD and to identify possible approaches for the treatment of existential suffering that could be drawn upon or modified in devising psychotherapeutic interventions for this population. This work uniquely highlights the ways that MAiD experiences are qualitatively different than other end of life trajectories and proposes a four-phase model of client needs based on where they are in the MAiD process as well as recommendations for counselling responses. Practical and theoretical considerations for relieving existential distress highlight important features of possible treatment approaches and ways that existing evidence-based manualized treatments might be modified to explicitly incorporate MAiD content into their programs. Ethical considerations related to maintenance of dignity and autonomy, the need to emphasize limits to confidentiality, special risks to consider in obtaining informed consent and issues of maleficence related to counsellor competence and training are identified. The work concludes with recommendations to guide practice and for future research.
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Citation
Publisher
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States
openAccess
openAccess