Containment and the Use of the Skin

 

Elmendorf, D.M. Containment and the Use of the Skin. In J.P. Muller & J.G. Tillman (Eds.), The Embodied Subject: Minding the Body in Psychoanalysis (pp. 81-92). Lanham, MD: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

Patients who engage in repetitive self-mutilation present enormous challenges. This chapter draws on the treatment of a woman, referred for inpatient care for malignant, dissociated self-mutilation, to illustrate the clinical usefulness of a developmental framework regarding the skin. I indicate how an object relations developmental perspective can provide a vantage point from which to view the disturbing, disorienting symptom of self-mutilation.

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