[The difficult passage between life and death of advanced patients and their most important needs: three clinical...

In the current study we describe three clinical cases with the aim of reflecting upon an increasingly frequent but still neglected reality in oncological practice; namely, the difficult passage of advanced patients and their most important needs as they progress from a so-called active form of treatment to a more supportive and palliative approach. The attempt to identify strategies that will enable the treatment center to remain impervious and receptive to the patient's suffering, has led us to consider the institutional organism as a field of defense mechanisms and as a thinking tool, of which the psychologist is part but must deal with in order to facilitate the patient's experience during the clinical course.