Between the One Who Remembers and the One Who Forgets

A relationship between a son or daughter and a parent diagnosed with dementia can be described as a relationship between one who remembers and one who forgets. In this essay-story, I begin with an autoethnographic narrative of an afternoon I spent in the nursing home in which my mother lived during the last two years of her life. The story exemplifies the kind of frustration, disappointment, and agitation I too frequently experienced as I encountered moral blindness or indifference among some health care staff, especially when different values were in play and crucial caregiving decisions needed to be made. In the final section of the paper, I discuss the importance of acknowledgment in the context of a caregiving relationship with a dementia or Alzheimer’s patient, that is, between one who remembers and one who forgets. I was the primary caregiver, but other caregivers in an institutional setting also maintain ongoing relationships with dementia patients. Too often their work with dementia patients is mediated not through a caring relationship but through objectifying and dehumanizing electronic information that can inhibit compassionate and humane medical care. Paperwork is not a substitute for authentic caregiving and acts of acknowledgment

Psychoanalysis · Psychology