[Problem of perception and denial of illness in women who had breast cancer]

It has been noted that some patients demonstrate denial when they have a severe illness such as cancer. We observed this type of denial with respect to perception of illness by patients. We interviewed twenty women who had been treated for breast cancer for more than one year. During these interviews, every patient narrated the story of her illness as she remembered it. One year or more after treatment, four women denied the diagnostic which was given to them when the treatments started. These four women were the only ones who never perceived the first signs of the illness. They never saw or felt any change around their breasts, and they are among the five women for whom breast cancer was detected from a systematic mammography. In contrast the other women, who did not manifest such denial, detected themselves an anomaly or were alerted by their physician. Based upon these observations, we discuss the notion of denial when patients have no perception of the illness or its first signs of onset. We pose a question concerning the interest and usefulness of such research concerning the representational process of illness by patients.