La perte d'une partie de soi dans le contexte d'une amputation traumatique de guerre : Un deuil impossible?

Abstract

In this article, the authors explore the subjective experience of an adult subjectamputated during his teenage years following a traumatic accident of war. Eleven semi-structured clinical interviews were conducted and analyzedusing psychoanalytic theory and principles. A projective test was alsoadministered. This research has helped identify how the absence of anyadequate and real support during war, prevented this subject from integratingthis extreme experience. Forced to absolute silence, he finds himselfin a painful stalemate, unable to reconstruct his broken identity after thistraumatic event. In order to survive this accident, he psychically amputatespart of himself, which allows him to guard against the emergence of difficultand painful emotions related to the loss of the body image he had of himselfbefore the amputation. But this psychological amputation that manifestsitself through a painful identity conflict, prevents him from undergoing agrieving process and therefore possibly symbolizing this traumatic event. Inthe context that surrounds him, investing in horses appears to be his onlyhope of repairing the narcissistic injury related to his traumatic amputation.