The glass coffin, to be or no to be Snow White

Abstract

We can widen the notion of « end of life » by including lives that are out of the race/circuit, excluded from “active life” and economic usefulness, and which entered this other major area of life we usually consider as the garbage of existence. We could compare this space to the glass coffin where the dwarves secluded Snow White, neither alive nor dead, but in end of life. This “end of life” starts very early in institutions or for those who live in the streets. Our society reinstated, without noticing, a caste of “untouchables” with whom we don’t know anymore how to relate. Accompaniment of the end of life actually appears closely bound to accompaniment of these lives finished, considered as “obsoletes”, expendable, disturbing… It gradually appeared to me that my workshops with homeless people or people deeply damaged by addictions were closer to palliative care than to “psychotherapy”.