ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a short review of the psychopathology of dysmorphophobia. Since dysmorphophobia is clinically a delusion about the deformation of one part of the body, it highlights how mental representations of our bodies can represent a distorted perception of a fragmented self. It is regrettable that so often in psychiatry a defence is set up against the joint psychotic experience. Sigmund Freud's dictum about the symptom that disappears in the melting-pot of transference also applies to delusional transference. The Winnicottian concept provides a perspective: one could also ask what the significance was in the adolescent pathology, and particularly in psychotic transference, of this early inability to play. The lack of an intermediate space is almost a tangible countertransference experience in relationships with patients like Florian. When the patient and therapist meet symbolically at the "primaeval" point, it might be possible to set out on a new path towards maturity in the direction of the depressive position.
