ABSTRACT
In psychoanalytic practice one may sometimes find examples like those I present, and that is why the primitive psychotic body image is a useful explanatory model for a variety of clinical cases. There may be different explanatory models, but for the time being I find the primitive psychotic body scheme the most useful and comprehensive, in so far as it is perfectly suited to many of the clinical phenomena I observe. It helps me to incorporate into a single model developmental genetic and transference concepts, both with schizophrenic and with psychosomatic patients. When we construct a model, we find it useful first for one particular patient but then often for other patients as well. To this we might add, provided it is consistent, a developmental genetic theory of infantile bonds that must be empirically demonstrated in the transference with the psychoanalyst.
