2

Self-cutting is at the very source of the body/psyche relationship that is constitutive of the subject’s identity at the end of adolescence. It is related to the failure of the mother’s containing role, leaving a deficient psychic envelope. The body is caught in the tumult of narcissistic reorganisations. Narcissism cannot be thought about independently of the object and of the relationship with the other, of the body and of its experiences. We shall see how attacks on the body have the function of patching up narcissistic flaws like a bandage. They exist so that the subject can get beyond his fixation to an alienating image of his ego. With the help of elements from the psychotherapy of Virginie, I will show how the gaze of the other offers the possibility of elaborating the subject’s feeling and makes it possible to restore the harmony between his own narcissism and his relationship with the other.