68

Could melancholy and chronic somatic disease be similar? Following the clinical case of a woman with chronic kidney failure and dialysis led us to ask this question. In a medical environment, strangely disturbing medical objects (dialysis bags, caregivers, vomiti, arteriovenous fistula, hemodialysis machine) have taken on, in the light of the clinic, strangely familiar senses, in a melancholic logic. With the work of melancholy and the work of somatization, we envisage somatization as a melancholic solution taken to the extreme.