You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
To comment on IJP Open, you have automatically been assigned a Disqus profile. You can view and contribute to article discussions by clicking on the Discuss icon located in the left toolbar.
Somatising patients tend to establish a very costly relationship with hospital organizations;from the viewpoint of the relationship they have with the professionals, as well as in terms of the material resources they consume. Based on a case study at a Hospital-school and the University associated to it, in this study I quantitatively analyzed the elements that an organizational culture offers its members, enabling them to collectively build social representations regarding psychic and somatic issues, and which elements they offer so that such representations can be integrated, articulated or collectively shared by its members, preparing them for care that will take into account patients' psychic and emotional aspects. I supported that data analysis on the instances set forth by the psycho-sociological methodology, emphasizing the Drive and Group instances contributed by psychoanalytic theory. The conclusion I came to is that the organizations analyzed do not have a culture that favors them, through social representations, the articulation and psychic integration of anxieties triggered by the medical task in general, and neither for the anxieties awoken by somatising patients. This is a task constantly faced with the possibility of death, leading to hypochondria as the core anguish triggered.