What would I like to say to those I am leaving behind?: A performance and dialogue about the mental health and healthcare implications of ethical will creation

Abstract: The human experience uniquely entails the psychological process of stitching together life’s highs, lows, and turning points to form a more-or-less cohesive narrative, enabling us to understand and explain who we are. We make sense of the past, interpret the present, and even forecast our stories into the future, trying to shape how we will be remembered after we are gone. One method of shaping our legacies is through “ethical wills”—documents that pass on life stories and personal values through written testimony.

This session features a “verbatim theatre” performance of anonymized older adults’ ethical wills, originally written as part of a pilot mental health intervention study. The pilot study found the process of creating ethical wills improved participants’ psychological well-being pre- to post-test, and was judged by participants to be highly meaningful, validating, and motivating.

Attendees will be introduced to the cultural, historical, and contemporary contexts of ethical wills; the design of the pilot intervention; and brief findings. Following the performance, attendees will be invited to participate in a close reading of ethical will excerpts and contribute to generative dialogue about the use of ethical wills for healthcare contexts such as ethics consultations and advanced care planning.

The scholarly prompts and thematic touchstones of the workshop are informed by the intersection of health humanities and clinical psychology (mental health), personality psychology (narrative identity), and developmental psychology (gerontology). Presenters have experience in psychological research, theater, creative writing, palliative care, and ethics consultation.