ABSTRACT
Joseph Gabel discusses a psychiatric case that is perhaps more significant for a criticai theorist of ideology than for a psychopathologist. The interpretation of a psychiatric case can never be completely objective since a cross-questioning involves, in psycho-pathology as well as elsewhere, the interaction of two minds. He highlights the schizophrenie character of the fundamental logicai features of ideological distortion as analyzed by Karl Mannheim in Ideology and Utopia. L. M., who was Joseph Gabel's patient during his internship in the French State Hospital of Saint Etienne de Rouvray, presented a spontaneous confirmation of this interpretation by elaborating a delusional totalitarian utopia. L. M. considers himself first and foremost to be a Catholic, but his “Catholicism” is very distinct from any teachings of the Church, becoming merely a term referring to the totality of his delusional ideas.
