ABSTRACT
This chapter explores clinical material that throws light on the inter-relationship between the growing child and his or her body. It focuses on the matter of in-dwelling or the inhabitation of the body and the body functioning. Various meanings are given to the word "depersonalisation," but on the whole they involve the child's or the patient's loss of contact with the body and body functioning, and this implies the existence of some other aspect of the personality. The basis of a self forms on the fact of the body which, being alive, not only has shape, but which also functions. The self, the sense of self and the child's ego-organisation may all be intact because of being based on a body that was normal for the child in the formative period. Eventually the self arrives at a significant relationship between the child and the sum of the identifications which become organised in the shape of an internal psychic living reality.
