[Psychogenic amenorrhoea and sexed body]

Psychogenic amenorrhoea turns a life event into a body event, for the simple reason that the sexed body cannot be reduced to an organism ruled by physiological laws. In addition to being a datum of life, the body, which is dedicated to "jouir", is also a construction both created by the imaginary and dissolved by the symbolic. This element accounts for the sensitivity of a bodily symptom to speech. As an illustration, the relation of a clinical case will show how, in the course of psychogenic amenorrhoea, the body undergoes a process of "jouissance" that translates into a kind of "organ paralysis", along with the dormant state of one physiological function and the whole body. Psychotherapy enabled one of the subjects to awaken her inhibited body after she had unrolled the significant elements of her desire. Addressing to the Other of language allowed her to create a social link and thus, undo the symptom.