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Relationships of care for those facing illness are inherent to the practice of medicine. Palliative care provides interpersonal space to patients and families that helps them face serious illness and dying. We consider therapeutic holding uniquely critical in palliative care but see it as applying in varied forms throughout medicine. Its optimization requires a deep understanding of its nature. We use theoretical foundations of psychodynamic therapy, which uses the therapeutic relationship as its sole intervention, to identify the key elements of palliative care's therapeutic holding. We draw together six major concepts to do so. Using a fairly typical case, we illustrate how a palliative care team that included a psychodynamic therapist created therapeutic holding. This article came as part of a discussion group about psychodynamic cases involving serious illness and evolved in discussion with the rest of the authors. Northwestern's Institutional Review Board (IRB) exempted this project. This case is anonymized; sociodemographic and specific illustrations are changed. This case exemplifies how psychodynamic theory discerns and describes elements of palliative care's therapeutic holding. The case further illuminates the important place of therapeutic holding in effective palliative care and shows how psychodynamic therapy can help. We urge further research on therapeutic holding in palliative care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the seventh entry in the Psychological Elements of Palliative Care (PEPC) series. Previous articles have focused on the psychological elements of the care we provide patients and the relationships we build with our referring clinician colleagues. In this entry, we focus on how the PEPC also impact clinician well being. The PEPC are bidirectional: we impact patients, but patients also impact us. The reactions that we have to patients and the boundaries we set around the care we provide are two examples of psychological factors of care that can influence our well being. Creating spaces to explore and reflect on the psychological impact of the clinical care we provide is a key component of wellness. Such spaces vary in their configuration, but all share the opportunity to self-reflect and to experience emotional validation, normalization, and reality testing from peers or mentors. In mental health training, clinical supervision is one common format for creating such a space. While this can be replicated in the palliative care setting, other strategies include integrating a psychological orientation into interdisciplinary team meetings, creating peer support or process groups, and creating small groups within teams for longitudinal self-reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]