Algunas consideraciones desde la psicología clínica sobre la religión católica como respuesta simbólica del paciente hospitalario frente a lo real de la muerte.

Abstract

Throughout history, attempts have been made to respond to the void of significance that death represents from different theories. In this investigation, it will be conceptualized how death is conceived in religion, specifically, the Catholic one, because it is this religion to which the majority of Ecuadorians belong. It will be investigated how religion manages to sustain a subject in the face of a traumatic encounter with the real of his own death, or, with that of a nearby other. Emphasis will be placed on hospital patients who, after receiving a diagnosis, encounter a reality that indicates their near death, and rely on religion to calm the anguish that the idea of death usually raises. It will be explained how the Catholic religion acts as a symbolic resource to watch over this real, and how it could also be used as a tamponade that makes it difficult for the subject to process the real implicit in their discomfort.