[Psychiatric referral in the terminally ill patient.]

The distinction between physiological and dysfunctional emotions in end-of-life care may be hard, for a twofold reason: on the one hand, the patient as a subject, with specific clinical features, personality, system of values; on the other hand, the clinical judgment by involved health professionals, particularly their specific cut-offs in discrimination between normal suffering and psychopathology. Both excessive/untimely medicalization and...