Support groups are one of the responses to the psychic trauma frequently experienced by caregivers in contact with many patients who die.

Similar disorders can be observed among firemen or professionals dealing with catastrophes: the ‘debriefing’ is not only aimed at knowing exactly what has happened or what did not go according to plan, but also at enabling each participant to express himself, and in particular to exteriorise his suffering.

We are not always dealing with dramatic palliative situations, but occasionally with communication problems with the patient (even at the onset of treatment).

Support groups should be led by a psychologist or a psychotherapist not involved in patient care, and who can understand the caregiver’s situation, but without having had any particular contact or relationship with the patient who is (involuntarily) the source of the caregiver’s distress.

A weekly or bi-monthly session including physicians helps to diminish caregiver anxiety at all hierarchical levels, thus diminishing patient anxiety.

Similar work (in its results, or at least in its conception) is conducted via Balint groups, where each physician expresses his difficulties with particular patients.

Physicians and caregivers in general need, in order to be true health professionals, to ensure that they are in good health themselves, both physically (avoiding excessive fatigue) and psychically (maintaining cultural and leisure activities and a well-balanced family and sentimental life if possible), in order to avoid burnout and therapeutic errors which occur all the more frequently and easily if the caregiver is vulnerable.