Transplantation okay - Psyche okay ? Reflections on psychosomatics in the field of organ transplantation

Transplantation puts a large burden on patients' psyche, before and after the operation. Psychosomatic care implicates helping patients to take a firm decision in favour of a new organ, of a new life. Incorporation of the graft, efficient doctor-patient-relations, pregnancy and sexuality, everything is possible but crucial to many patients. Psychosomatic knowledge and specified consulting help them and their families and even the doctors and nurses to cope with overwhelming emotions, fear and a lifelong danger of loosing the organ. Transplantation means crossing borders, going into unknown psychic regions. And the recent rapid development of living liver transplantation does not facilitate things. (Acta gastroenterol. belg., 2005, 68, 353-357).