Boucherat-Hue, Valérie <br/><br/>
The "Hermit Crab Complex" or Work with Allergic Defense Mechanisms 

 -  2002.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> Based on clinical interviews and the Rorschach test with an asthmatic boy in late adolescence, this paper demonstrates how the allergic-mental defense mechanisms conceived by psychosomatic theory are resources in psychical organization. In this clinical case, their purpose is to short-circuit the Oedipal complex and latency work, the confrontation with the difficulties of puberty, and the necessary psychical renunciations of the young adult. In the course of the study, allergic reactions in adolescence can be conceived, in some clinical configurations, as a potential system of protection that is relatively economical at the psychosomatic level, and which may encompass some acute asthma attacks with a rather good prognosis.