Angelini G, Rebaudengo P
Minerva Med. 1981 Nov 3;72(43):2895-900.
Surgical interventions generally generate irrational fantasies and hidden anxieties concerning the body image, the sexual identity and the Ego identity. Some defense mechanisms are then utilized, tending to preserve the physical and psychic integrity, particularly when, as in gynaecological surgery, the interested organs are charged with important symbolic significance. The social, psychological and cultural aspects of gynaecological surgery necessarily involved three subjects: the patient her family, and the physician; each of them plays an important role for the success of every surgical operation. The post-intervention clinical pattern of the psycho-somatic and somato-psychic symptoms is structurally linked to the patient relationship with her partner (or her family) and with her physician. The physician should enable his patient to exactly comprehend the situation and to distinguish between the real fears for intervention and the irrational ones, bound to fantasmatic projections concerning her body image. After a review of the existing literature three clinical histories are briefly reported, which confirm the importance of a biological support during the delicate phase of the surgical intervention and the recovery.
