Menanteau, Maxime
Dying at Home: Meaning and Issues of Home in the Practice of Palliative Care
- 2013.
87
As much as it remains the most certain experience to occur in life, our death cannot be represented in itself. We can only set it aside (Freud 1915). Even when death becomes embodied in the Other in palliative care, we can still see it as an object, a dying object (Higgins 2003). Home (as many patients express a desire to return or stay there) could represent a potential mediation, so that health professionals and families can find a common space. This request is more problematic when home care can be taken as help as well as an intrusion (Ennuyer 2006). The present research aims to understand the significance conveyed and assumed by the home in the death experience, through our many clinical interactions. A clear distinction between house and home emerges clearly, which our study outlines.