Psychic Work at the End of Life

In this report, the author reflects on her work as a psychologist in a hospital setting. Her reflections center on the complexity of the psychological work of cancer patients at the very end of their lives. She questions the continuity and/or breakdown in the movement of this work, the consciousness possible or impossible, and the unconscious work, at the precise moment when curative treatments are abandoned by doctors and the patient enters palliative care. She stresses the importance of the psychologist’s work in hospitals as protector of the psychological life of the patient.