The psychological understanding of organ donation must be part of a broader reflection that includes an analysis of the scientific, cultural and medical practices within which the body is conceived contemporarily. Thus, the main purpose of this study was to develop an analysis of the impact caused by organ donation on the relationship that a person establishes with the body, taken as an individual’s place, the center of symbolical, relational, identity, and historical crossings. A theoretical review was carried out to develop a conceptual basis for some of the body representations in our culture, especially the representations related to corporal technologies in medicine. This analysis suggested that organ donation is part of a practice that conceives the body as a non-place, that is, that divests the body from the symbolical meanings that designated it as the chanel for social relationships and the place of a human identity registry.
Organ donation; body; identity