19 Facts About Caitlin Doughty

Caitlin Marie Doughty was born on August 19,1984 and is an American mortician, author, blogger, YouTuber, and advocate for death acceptance and the reform of Western funeral industry practices.

Caitlin Doughty was quickly taken from the scene of the accident and it was never spoken of again.

Caitlin Doughty says she could have recovered better from the incident if she had been given the opportunity to face the reality of the child's death.

Caitlin Doughty attended St Andrew's Priory School, a private Episcopal all-girls college prep school in Honolulu.

Caitlin Doughty studied the European witch trials in the early modern period, and directed a play she had written based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe and the Christina Rossetti poem "Goblin Market".

Pacific Interment could be called "the anti-Forest Lawn", referring to what Caitlin Doughty sees as the theme-park-like, kitschy corporate funeral behemoth that much of modern American funeral practice is modeled on.

Caitlin Doughty picked up corpses from homes and hospitals in a van, prepared them for viewings, cremated them, and delivered the cremains to the families.

Caitlin Doughty has said she knew almost from the beginning of her work in the death industry that she wanted to change attitudes about death and find a way to offer alternative funeral arrangements.

Caitlin Doughty founded The Order of the Good Death, an association of like-minded death professionals, along with artists, writers, and academics who shared her goals of reforming Western attitudes about death, funerals, and mourning.

Caitlin Doughty wanted to encourage death acceptance, and a return to such practices as memento mori, reminders of one's own mortality, resulting in healthier grieving, mourning, and closure after the inevitable deaths of people around us, as well as starting a movement to broaden the funeral industry to offer more funeral options, such as natural burial, sky burial, and alkaline hydrolysis.

Caitlin Doughty seeks to build on Mitford's reforms but in a direction that embraces the reality of death and returns to funeral and mourning practices that include spending time with and having contact with the dead body itself.

Caitlin Doughty uses an irreverent, offbeat and surreal tone to attract the largest possible audience for a subject that is otherwise off-putting and depressing to many potential viewers.

Fans of Ask a Mortician have told Caitlin Doughty they were shamed for wanting to view the corpse of someone they lost, which Caitlin Doughty says is the result of the death industry "whitewashing death".

Caitlin Doughty encourages rituals and personal participation in the preparation of the corpse, including washing or dressing it.

Originally focused on answering questions from viewers, the Ask a Mortician series has largely shifted focus to a series of short form documentaries where Caitlin Doughty speaks about notable historical events involving death.

Since writing the book, Caitlin Doughty began working to launch Undertaking LA, a funeral service alternative to the mainstream funeral options.

Caitlin Doughty said the establishment funeral industry benefits from public's ignorance of the options and rights they have in how to handle the death, having no incentive to correct the perception that handing the body over to a funeral home for a traditional funeral is the best or only option.

Caitlin Doughty is the founder of "The Order of the Good Death" an inclusive community of funeral industry professionals, academics, as well as artists who advocate for and make possible, a more death informed society.

Caitlin Doughty's work has a strong focus on ways of "making death a part of one's life".