Includes bibliographical references and index.

My clinical social work experience includes both medical social work and private psychotherapy. A unique psychotherapy client sparked my interest in older adults with serious illness. This client had a heart attack and then became comatose in an intensive care unit. During his coma, he had a vivid near death experience in which he relived past traumas. As he recovered, the insights from this near death experience led to life changing posttraumatic growth. I searched the research literature to understand how surviving illness could result in growth. However, there were few research studies about the psychological needs of older adults and especially about older adults recovering from serious illness. There were no research articles connecting near death experiences to growth. This report describes the methodology used in my PhD dissertation; beginning with difficulties of recruiting a sample of 32 older adult participants. Since there is little research literature about the connections between critical illness, near death experiences and posttraumatic growth, I utilized a multifaceted methodological approach to explore as many aspects of these topics as possible. Quantitative methods utilized were two research scales previously used in large-scale medical research. Qualitative methods involved conducting in-depth interviews with participants. Interviews were analyzed with Atlas.ti software. These quantitative and qualitative methods were combined through triangulation methodology, using my medical and clinical social work experience to produce a richer understanding of the data. Two examples from the research findings will illustrate how this combination of methodological approaches yielded unique results.

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