“SO FAR AWAY” How Doctors Can Contribute to Making Endometriosis Hell on Earth. A Call for Humanistic Medicine and Empathetic Practice for Genuine Person-Centered Care. A Narrative Review

Figures & data

Table 1 The Eight Dimensions of Dehumanization as Described by Todres and Co-Workers

Objectification	The condition in which clinicians fail to take into account patients’ unique feelings and emotions, thus treating the individual as an inanimate object which fits into a diagnostic category.
Passivity	The condition in which an individual is deprived of his/her sense of agency.
Homogenization	De-emphasizing people’s uniqueness in favor of how they fit into a particular category.
Isolation	The dimension in which an individual experiences a lack of closeness and intimacy with significant others.
Loss of meaning	When an individual is deprived of the ability to integrate his/her symptoms and the disruption these may cause on everyday living in a larger perspective, within his/her life story.
Loss of personal journey	The condition in which physicians are not considerate of an individual’s sense of continuity within his/her personal journey.
Dislocation	When a sense of at-homeliness is lost and a sense of strangeness arises.
Reductionist body	When signs, symptoms and the results of instrumental exams are overemphasized and the individual’s psychological, environmental, social and spiritual dimensions are neglected.

Figure 1 Women with endometriosis’ perception of dehumanization in clinical practice. (A) objectification; (B) passivity; (C) homogenization; (D) isolation; (E) loss of meaning; (F) loss of personal journey; (G) dislocation; (H) reductionist body.