ple, after the woman in Carlo's therapy group hears the insensitive comments directed towards her and towards her rape experience, on top of the experience itself, she may have trouble having relationships with other men, and be in a state of constant distrust at revealing her emotions and may have very much difficulty carrying on loving relationships with other men. These are the types of effects that, even after a person is dead, can have on those that are still living. This is something Carlo's simply cannot realize, he is too wrapped up in feeling sorry for himself and in his problems, that he does not realize what kinds of bad things he is causing and what kind of negative effects he is having on the world. Besides being afraid, Carlos is in denial about the short time he has left to live. This denial comes naturally from being afraid. Kubler-Ross talks about denial and its effect on people's behavior. "It is the denial of death that is partially responsible for people living, empty purposeless lives" (357). Here, Kubler-Ross is once again saying that the reason most people live empty lives is because they are id denial about their death. "Since we stopped chemotherapy two months ago, I go days at a time without thinking of the cancer. That's goddamn good, isn't it-to forget, to be free of it, to be able to live a normal life for a while" (77)? Here Carlos is sure that being in denial, or forgetting about it, is a good thing. But in reality his denial only serves to desensitize himself and his compassion for other people. This can be seen in his unsupportive stance to the women and all the others in his therapy group. It possible to see how his defense system, protecting him against the fears of death, operates and how his attitude changes with the varying degrees of severity of his illness. " Over the months I had been seeing Carlos, I had discovered that I could chart, with astonishing accuracy, the course of his cancer by notin...
