[The unspeakable experience of disgust in care, the case of Anna Broyer].

Abstract

The body-to-body contact required in the care relationship is little theorized from the point of view of caregivers' experience of disgust and their strategies for coping with it. Sometimes evoked in the wings of the inner circle, on the front of the stage, disgust remains forbidden, a kind of slash in the face of professional morality. Forged in the importance of relationships and respect for others, the care relationship makes little room for this experience. The palliative care situation of a 70-year-old patient suffering from a highly invasive cancer for which the odors were particularly nauseating lifts the veil on a frequent reality of the care relationship: disgust with the bodies being cared for. Beyond the exceptionality of this situation, we need to understand how it sheds light on the anthropological place that a care situation represents.