# Comprehensive care and accompaniment: presuppositions, attitudes, and scope

## TL;DR

This paper explores how accompaniment can humanize healthcare by addressing the whole person in a relational and ethical way.

## Contribution

It introduces accompaniment as a multidimensional relational practice rooted in the anthropology of care.

## Key findings

- Accompaniment is a key pathway for humanizing healthcare in technified contexts.
- Vulnerability is understood through four dimensions: ontological, situational, relational, and technological.
- The approach emphasizes ethical implications for clinical relationships and moral responsibility.

## Abstract

This article proposes a theoretical-conceptual reflection on accompaniment as a fundamental relational style of comprehensive care, with a primary focus on the healthcare field. Based on a narrative and critical review of philosophical, ethical, and healthcare literature, the work draws on the anthropology of care—especially Francesc Torralba’s personalist philosophical perspective—to establish care as a structural dimension of the human condition, intrinsically linked to vulnerability and relationality. The hypothesis is that accompaniment constitutes a privileged pathway for the humanization of healthcare in contexts marked by increasing technification and standardization of care. From this perspective, accompaniment is understood as a comprehensive practice oriented toward the whole person, addressing the biological, psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions in an articulated manner. The analysis incorporates a multidimensional understanding of vulnerability—ontological, situational, relational, and technological—emphasizing its relevance in the post-COVID-19 context and its ethical implications for the clinical relationship and moral responsibility. The article concludes by highlighting the value of accompaniment as a relational framework for more humanized and person-centered healthcare practices.