HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychology for Clinical Settings
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovative Paradigms of Accompaniment in Healthcare: Humanizing PracticesView all 12 articles
Comprehensive Care and Accompaniment: Presuppositions, Attitudes and Scope
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Spain
- 2Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Móstoles, Spain
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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 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 towards 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—emphasising 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 humanised and person-centred healthcare practices
Keywords: Accompaniment, attitudes, caregiver, competencies, comprehensive care, Culture of accompaniment, preventive care, Vulnerability
Received: 10 Oct 2025; Accepted: 09 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 de la Calle Maldonado, Castañera and Núñez-Sánchez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Carmen de la Calle Maldonado
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