Suffering and interpersonality in the absolute absence of an answer

A phenomenological reflection on the relationship between doctor and patient in the face of coma

Abstract

The following article aims to provide a phenomenological reflection on the limits of the notion of suffering as a determined clinical entity, specifically when it comes to situations of coma. Is it possible to consider someone in a coma as being in suffering? Or rather, as having personhood? According to Eric Cassell's (1982) influential definition of personhood, which determines suffering as a threat to the integrity of the person, an experience that is given in time and is the result of the disturbance of behaviors that underpin a personal identity, it could not be assumed that in a coma there would be a personal dimension. In the following work, we will try to bring some elements of the limitations pointed out by Braude (2012) in Cassell's position of personal suffering into dialog with the ethical approach based on the phenomenological analysis proposed by Zielinski (2022), in which the author proposes a phenomenology of man in which the human is absent. These analyses sought to investigate an unconscious dimension of personhood, given in a relationship of vulnerability and interpersonality.