The appearance in illness. A woman’s body and its aesthetics during palliative therapy

In a situation of illness, a woman is burdened with a certain psychological conflict between the real body and the meanings assigned to it. As a result, women in situations of an appearance crisis feel isolated and alienated. Talks about femininity and its external shaping only seemingly go beyond the medical aspects of caring for patients. A standardized, procedure-compliant treatment of a terminal patient should be enriched with other topics that are important for the patient.

The IDI (individual in-depth interview) interview technique was used for the research, consisting in a face-to-face conversation between the researcher and the respondent. The interviews concerned mainly issues related to the external construction of femininity and were divided into categories: general care situation; cosmetics and beauty treatments; hairdressing treatments; perfume; makeup; colors; wardrobe and footwear and jewelry.

Research seems to confirm that one should talk to patients about the external advantages of their appearance and refer to practices that bring these advantages. Conversation about femininity is the restoration of one’s subjectivity – being a creator and not only a receiver. At the same time, hospices should try to recreate the previous experiences of patients in terms of the aesthetics of their own appearance.