Encore des mots, toujours des maux, les mêmes maux ?

Context

The hospital is in crisis, with many ills and difficulties experienced by caregivers and patients alike. These difficulties are due to the de-subjectivization of caregivers and patients, conveyed by the language of a techno-scientific new management.

Objectives

To show how metapsychology and psychoanalysis can help caregivers and their patients rediscover in their language a space of subjectivity in which to express themselves and bear witness to their realities.

Method

Exploration of the effects of the new managerial and techno-scientific language used and experienced in care by caregivers and their patients.

Results

The language of new hospital management can be seen as a socio-psycho-linguistic virus, weakening caregivers and forcing them to act rather than reflect, because of a lack of words and of space in which to express themselves. Techno-scientific language reifies patients and detaches them from their unique experiences. Caregivers and patients therefore find it difficult to relate to each other in any way other than through their illness. Psychoanalysis and metapsychology create the conditions for deepening and redeploying the caregiver-patient relationship, and through attention to narrativity, they enable us to give importance to the patient's narrative. Systems inspired by institutional psychotherapy give caregivers the space to develop their subjectivity and reduce the suffering associated with caring for patients.

Conclusion

The struggle of languages to which patients and caregivers are subjected is partly responsible for the malaise in hospital culture. It seems to us that working on the language of caregivers and patients, and maintaining spaces for everyone to put themselves into words, could contribute to the development of a culture of care that prevents the actors and subjects of care from talking to each other only about their ills.