La torture inscrit violemment la victime dans le moment de sa mise à mort physique et symbolique, qui dépend entièrement de la malveillance d’autrui. Sa véritable visée est la désubjectivation de la personne par la menace de destruction de son corps ou des liens qui la rattachent à son groupe identitaire. Comme la frayeur et la douleur provoquées par la torture dépassent les limites du figurable, l’expérience de la victime est inénarrable. Ce stigmate fait en sorte que la personne, quand elle survit, peut rester sous l’emprise du bourreau, incapable de réintégrer pleinement son état de sujet. Or, la mise en récit de l’expérience et sa transmission, lesquelles participent à une forme de deuil du sujet torturé, peuvent occasionner une reconfiguration psychique de la victime qui lui permette de réintégrer le monde en tant que sujet.

Recent studies conducted in the world"s most industrialized nations reveal that access to palliative care is both inadequate and unequal. The problem is exacerbated by the exponentially growing need for this type of care due to the world"s rapidly aging population. These findings have prompted governments to address the problem, most often with new legislation and the allocation of more resources. Despite these efforts and a definite improvement in access to palliative care, important inadequacies and inequalities in access to these services persist. A paradigm shift in the way palliative care is seen and implemented, inspired by new research and pioneered by the work of Allan Kellehear, could better serve the world"s aging and vulnerable populations: rather than continue to separate the sick and the dying from their communities in order to treat them in costly, depersonalizing institutions, these patients would become a central component around which community services and professional care services would be organically interwoven. This new model, called the "Compassionate Community" model, is inspired by public health approaches of health promotion. Initial experimentation with such communities has yielded promising results, suggesting that the Compassionate Communities model could prove to be a viable alternative to the current approach to palliative care and to the overstrained system borne from it.