Existenzielle Kommunikation – Schlagwort oder wichtiges Werkzeug?

The term existential communication emerged only recently in the literature on oncology and palliative medicine. It refers to the doctor-patient communication comprising issues of mortality, meaningfulness, the fragility of being and the associated rational and emotional coping.

A literature search for the term existential communication was carried out in PubMed. Moreover, from the results and the author’s own long background of facilitating breaking bad news workshops for oncologists, features of an existential communication are demonstrated.

A PubMed search resulted in only 8 papers from the last decade explicitly using the term existential communication. Hundreds of papers used existential in various other attributions, from existential aspects to existential well-being. The term existential was rooted in various directions of predominantly German existential philosophy, which after National Socialism resonated in the USA and catalyzed pioneering strategies of psycho-oncological support. Existential communication underlines the necessity for end of life conversations in oncology and palliative medicine and also to avoid burdening patients with very advanced cancer with futile tumor-specific treatment with detrimental side effects. In this way a deeper professional satisfaction may be experienced.