Behavior: The Conversion of K

From thanatology to séances and sex

Her surprise bestseller of 1969, On Death and Dying, made her well known. The thanatology boom of the 1970s made her famous. Until recently, Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 53, traveled 250,000 miles a year as a star of the U.S. lecture circuit. Her outline of the five phases of death—from angry denial to final acceptance—is routinely taught at school and hospital seminars. Readers of the Ladies' Home Journal chose Kübler-Ross as one of eleven "women of the decade" for the 1970s. Even the movies are beginning to take account of the phenomenon: Bob Fosse's forthcoming film, All...