Abstract

This article analyzes self-disconnection as a phenomenological characterization of a destructive disease such as Alzheimer’s. We want to show that, in the most extreme cases of its development, the patient sinks into emotional disengagement because of the destructive plasticity that affects them. This isolation implies an emotional challenge for family members who observe that their loved one becomes disconnected and that they cannot do anything to prevent it. However, family members seek to assist their loved one in their marginalization. The scope of this accompaniment reveals the human experience of consolation as an intersubjective response to this disconnection. The analysis of this disconnection reveals, in a paradoxical way, the human need to put distance in the face of extreme suffering, and at the same time shows its limit. The anthropological analysis of the devices of actio per distans can offer transcendental support to the ethics of tenderness in the face of the experience of illness.