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Experiencing a serious disease puts the patient’s identity at risk. We suggest that recourse to narcissistic identification may constitute a rampart against this threat on the condition that a passage toward hysterical identification can then ensue. This latter guaranties the «libidinal subversion» of the biological body, followed by a durable reappropriation of that body by the patient. The «formal signifiers» (Anzieu) clinically express these processes. They will be explicated by means of two autobiographical accounts (Nancy, Marin). Spotting these identificatory processes by the clinician can constitute an essential part of his or her work at the hospitalised patient’s bedside.