Unit:
Κατεύθυνση Ψυχοδυναμική Ψυχοθεραπεία σε Ιατρικό ΠλαίσιοLibrary of the School of Health Sciences
Supervisors info:
Mαρία Κοκκώση, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια, Ιατρική, ΕΚΠΑ
Δημήτρης Αναγνωστόπουλος, Καθηγητής, Ιατρική, ΕΚΠΑ
Ελένη Λαζαράτου, Καθηγήτρια, Ιατρική, ΕΚΠΑ
Original Title:
Δεσμοί ψυχής-σώματος στην ψυχαναλυτική θεωρία και κλινική. Το σώμα ως αναπαράσταση και χρήση: μια κλινικο-θεωρητική προσέγγιση ασθενών στο φάσμα της οριακής-ναρκισσιστικής παθολογίας
Translated title:
Mind-body relations in psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. The body as representation and use: a clinico-theoretical perspective on two cases in the spectrum of borderline-narcissistic pathology
Summary:
The following study refers to the body in a metapsychological sense and explores aspects of the body-mind relation in their specific clinical context. It examines, in particular, the relation between representations and uses of the body by referring to two clinical examples in the spectrum of borderline-narcissistic pathology. Is there theoretical and clinical evidence for a dialectic relation between representation and use and if so how does that enhance our psychoanalytic understanding of embodiment in borderline pathology? The study comprises four sections. The Introduction discusses the larger theoretical framework of psychoanalytic conceptions of the body, presents the basic conceptual axes of the paper and specifies its methodological perspective. Section I focuses on the body qua representation, namely on body-image: drawing on Freudian and post-Freudian conceptions of mirroring, this section argues that early mother-infant relationship affects the development of a stable and unified body-image, disturbances of which find clinical expression in the specific patients discussed. Section II focuses on body-uses. It examines how these same borderline patients resort to what may be called affective uses of their bodies: namely, uses whose cathexes and affective qualities are not always congruent or well-integrated with their mental representations (including the representations of their bodies, i.e. their body-image). The work of André Green (and in particular his discussion of the Freudian affect/representation distinction in relation to the clinical particularities of borderline pathology) provides the basic conceptual framework for this section. In the final part, some brief clinico-theoretical remarks offer a conclusion to this study.
Main subject category:
Health Sciences
Keywords:
Body, Embodied subject, Body-image, Affective uses of the body, Borderline-narcissistic pathology