ABSTRACT
In this chapter I will briefly describe a number of patients and my clinical experience of them to illustrate how the patient’s use of the body or inanimate objects may be understood to be an unconscious attempt to manage or change emotional conflicts through enacting them on the body – their own or someone else’s. This might be considered to be a reflection of the patients own early experience of being reacted to at a purely physical level rather than at an emotional or mental level. It is said that some patients – and those displaying violence, perversion and delinquincy would definitely come into this category – do not have a sufficient capacity to use their mind and resort to the use of the body as their only means of expression and communication.
