Ambiguïté du désir des patients et des soignants

Sometimes, patients get the feeling that doctors and nurses just don't understand, and sometimes, doctors and nurses get the feeling that their work for the well-being of the patient isn't really what the patient wants. Here we examine the notion of desire caught within the circuit of affection and the ambiguous relationships between needs and satisfaction. We describe the difficulties encountered in distinguishing between two mutually enhancing notions: desire and need. The desires of the caregiver, like that of the care recipient, can be considered to be an expression of the desire for identity and the desire for alterity. In the context of a chronic disease, this ambiguity can also be expressed in the relationship between the desire for cure and the desire for health.