The psychatrist’s nose
Hanon, Cécile
The psychatrist’s nose - 2021.
38
Human beings have five senses: hearing, sight, touch, taste, and smell. So do psychiatrists. Today, the relationship of new digital and information technologies to medicine, and a fortiori psychiatry, plunges us into an aseptic relational space, without limits and in which temporality has been abolished. The care relationship has been modified, particularly with regard to sensory experience. However, smell is everywhere, imposing itself and intruding. It is aggressive when it is putrid and an implicit factor of disgust and disease. It can also be a subtle perfume or delicate essence, and a vehicle for love, desire, and sensuality. The body exhales the mind. The psychiatrist, like any carer, is confronted with smell in their relationship with the patient. It helps them to know the other person and can even guide their clinical approach. But when the smell is difficult to bear, what is the impact on the therapeutic relationship and on the respect of care ethics?
The psychatrist’s nose - 2021.
38
Human beings have five senses: hearing, sight, touch, taste, and smell. So do psychiatrists. Today, the relationship of new digital and information technologies to medicine, and a fortiori psychiatry, plunges us into an aseptic relational space, without limits and in which temporality has been abolished. The care relationship has been modified, particularly with regard to sensory experience. However, smell is everywhere, imposing itself and intruding. It is aggressive when it is putrid and an implicit factor of disgust and disease. It can also be a subtle perfume or delicate essence, and a vehicle for love, desire, and sensuality. The body exhales the mind. The psychiatrist, like any carer, is confronted with smell in their relationship with the patient. It helps them to know the other person and can even guide their clinical approach. But when the smell is difficult to bear, what is the impact on the therapeutic relationship and on the respect of care ethics?
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