The body as transitional object: a psychoanalytic study of a self‐mutilating patient*

Münchhausen Syndromes and Factitious Diseases

“…Only in a 16 Plassmann Münchhausen Syndromes and Factitious Diseases therapeutic process of longer duration can a sufficiently stable working relationship be es tablished, on the basis of which negative expe riences can be worked through without the patient's calling off the therapy. A method fre quently used to create a stable working rela tionship is initial hospitalization, whereby the duration of this inpatient hospital treatment varies greatly, from several weeks [69] to 2 years [34], This initial inpatient treatment phase enables the patient to gain his or her first experience with a psychotherapeutic rela tionship, i.e. a relationship which involves talking and reflecting.…”

Young people who cut themselves: can understanding the reasons guide the treatment?

“…Dissociation and depersonalisation have been described in association with cutting in adults and young people (Klonsky 2003;Messer 2008). In these circumstances the unpleasant state of feeling detached from oneself or the world can be terminated by self-cutting (Kafka 1969;Miller 1974;Swenson 1999;Zanarini 2000).…”

Syndromes Related to Factitious Diseases

“…In the psy chodynamic literature, the most detailed dis cussion of the symptom is provided by Her mann [9] (see below), who speaks o f 'habitual cuticle-picking'. Rosow [4], Scott [10], and Kafka [11] mention it in case descriptions.…”