Postoperative psychosocial care of the body/woman after mastectomy for breast cancer: a reflection

Abstract

On a global level, breast cancer is considered the second most common type of cancer in women. However, the majority of patients will survive due to early detection and the evolution and availability of effective treatments, such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormonotherapy and, most frequently, the surgical removal of the breast or breasts (increasingly less radical) or part of thereof, known as mastectomy, thus improving chances of survival. This provides evidence as to the need to link breast cancer treatment to care that enables a better quality of life for women whose body has undergone suffering and a therapeutically necessary mutilation, which should be echoed in new paradigms for bodily care. This suggests a further need for a theoretical reflection on professional nursing care for patients who have undergone mastectomy treatment for breast cancer, comprising an analysis of the theoretical proposals of authors such as Leonardo Boff, Mayeroff and David Le Breton. These authors reveal that one cannot deal with emotions, feelings and thoughts without a body, nor can one care for a body without emotions, feelings and thoughts. This leads to the conclusion that the psychosocial care of the body/woman requires an integrated care that represents, for the nursing professional, a process involving not only the act of nursing but also the human being in its entirety.