[Psychological approach to congenital hand deformities. Congenital deformities, the desire to know]

The psychological approach to congenital malformation is determined by the stares of the others and the individual's needs. The relationship of the body of the person afflicted with a congenital malformation is a question of aesthetic suffering and not of functional use. Caught up in a network of a priori and anxiety-based projections, it is difficult for patients, children, adolescents or adults, to express themselves and make themselves heard. This multi-faced issue poses a basic problem for a society, which penalizes physical deformity. Beyond the medical techniques, the subject's ethic has to be considered.