[A psychotic symbiotic child. Clinical and psychopathological study]

Through the case study of a psychotic girl, we have tried to outline the psychotic mechanisms involved in this mental functioning. Anxieties of an autistic type have been found, as well as anxieties of a more psychotic type (i.e. symbiotic and schizophrenic). Characteristics of this psychotic functioning were: omnipotence, primitive identification mechanisms, fragmenting separation anxiety, search for sameness and for a low of identical repetition, difficulties in accessing to symbolism. Difficulties in defusion from the symbiotic object and the potential role played by this object in the difficulties are noteworthy. But it is not possible to conceptualize them in terms of direct causal relationship, because the object has also a counterphobic function and compensates for the void of subject as well as for the dissolution of the self. Also present is a schizoparanoïd aspect, with a temptation to cuddle inside the object. The sudden breaking through of informations or requirements from reality provokes surprise, panic reactions and retirement from the objectal world. Otherness triggers psychic pain and vacillation of symbiotic bounds. Thus the avoidance of, and retirement from, reality and the recourse to delusional thinking, especially when attempts to controlling with a rigid system are failing and deceiving. Threats of intrusion and loss of control are experienced as a threat of fragmentation and dissolution of the psyche. Far less threatening to the subject's internal balance is the policy of rigidly maintaining sameness and cuddling inside the object.