Role of Psychosomatic Medicine in Palliative Care,from the Point of View of a Psychiatrist

Abstract

As cancer is a life threatening, patients feel extreme distress and sometime manifest psychiatric disease such as major depression. The needs for psychological care and psycho-oncologist are increasing. Psycho-oncologist is the specialist who have specialty concerning psychiatry or psychosomatic medicine, and also oncology, and can facilitate communication between medical staffs, and enable total care including bio-psycho-social-spiritual aspect. This is in the spirit of psycho-somatic medicine.