ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Ahktar's concept of characterological dignity with reference to the role of the body and modesty. There has been virtually nothing written in the psychoanalytic literature about children and adolescents on this topic. The dignity of the child or adolescent is integral in psychoanalysis, if perhaps indirectly so, both theoretically and clinically. While the psychoanalytic literature is lacking on the specific subject of dignity, there is much written about narcissism starting with Freud's 1914 paper. The chapter suggests that as the child moves along this developmental line something else occurs: the child acquires a sense of pride in, and value of, his or her body. Thus, the "narcissistic cathexis" of which Anna Freud speaks serves not only a self-protective function, but also leads to the development of a sense of dignity whereby the body is treated as a valued possession that is to be protected emotionally as well as physically.
