Self harm: establishing boundaries?
Authors
Murphy, Kay
Issue Date
2002
Degree
MA in Psychoanalysis
Publisher
Dublin Business School
Rights holder
Rights
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Abstract
The case of a young woman of twenty five, Sharon, whom I saw for five sessions, who self-harmed by cutting and burning her skin made me interested in exploring this phenomenon from a psychoanalytic perspective. She said that she had 1 ~w memories of her childhood, prior to the age of twelve. Her sense of guilt was very striking. Ste had attempted to commit suicide when she was eighteen. While recently hospitalised ~pe presented, unasked, cuts on her stomach for her doctor's attention. She said that she had feelings of sadness, anger and hatred. Towards whom? I asked. She replied that they were towards herself, that she must be a bad person. She feels that she isn't free of her father, though he has been dead for five years. The themes that I would like to look at in relation to this woman's problem are how the effect of the father's violence, so evident in this case, contributed to her problem and why she is harming herself by marking her skin, either by cuts or bums, thereby causing herself pain, what does she gain by doing this. Why does someone harm themselves? Why has Sharon directed anger against herself when it would seem more reasonable to direct it towards her father. Why can she not be free of him, someone of whom she had the bitterest memories. I want to explore Lacanian theory, particularly around the importance of the family, to look at how relationships in her family impacted on her psychological life. Likewise, I will look at some of Freud's texts, particularly in relation to the perversions, to see how they help in understanding the difficulties she is now having as an adult. Freud pointed out that it is only in pathological cases that preliminary stages of sexual organisation are active and recognisable.