Bodily experiences in the elderly are caracterized by many aspects as biological changes age-related, comorbidity and cronicity of the diseases, functional impairment, need of many medications with side effects and iatrogenicity risk. Older people become still more bodily-centred for many remarkable reasons: the ill body as a disfunc- tional object and as a concrete evidence of time and of limited life perspective; the aged and suffering body with less and less sources of pleasure and sa- tisfaction; the body with its symbolic and commu- nicative meanings; the body as an organizer of the psyche and as a condensing area of several feelings (shame, rage, humiliation, incapacity, helplessness); the body as a projection screen of bad and re- jected part of the self. In the clinical context the manifold aspects of somatic expression of depres- sion in the aged people are well known. The authors stress from a psychodynamic perspec- tive the central role of bodily experience in suici- dality of aged depressed people: in these patients the unbearable mental pain (Shneidman, 1993) is strongly linked to the suicidal body (Orbach, 2008): feeling of helplessness, weakened or damaged ego, bodily dissociation and splits in the inner word that enable identification of bad parts of the self with the body, push the individual to cross the body barrier (Hale, 2008), i.e. to overcome the resistance to act out self-destructive fantasies.
Late-Onset depression, suicidality and central role of bodily experience: A Psychodynamic Perspective
Tugnoli S.;CARACCIOLO, Stefano
2010
Abstract
Bodily experiences in the elderly are caracterized by many aspects as biological changes age-related, comorbidity and cronicity of the diseases, functional impairment, need of many medications with side effects and iatrogenicity risk. Older people become still more bodily-centred for many remarkable reasons: the ill body as a disfunc- tional object and as a concrete evidence of time and of limited life perspective; the aged and suffering body with less and less sources of pleasure and sa- tisfaction; the body with its symbolic and commu- nicative meanings; the body as an organizer of the psyche and as a condensing area of several feelings (shame, rage, humiliation, incapacity, helplessness); the body as a projection screen of bad and re- jected part of the self. In the clinical context the manifold aspects of somatic expression of depres- sion in the aged people are well known. The authors stress from a psychodynamic perspec- tive the central role of bodily experience in suici- dality of aged depressed people: in these patients the unbearable mental pain (Shneidman, 1993) is strongly linked to the suicidal body (Orbach, 2008): feeling of helplessness, weakened or damaged ego, bodily dissociation and splits in the inner word that enable identification of bad parts of the self with the body, push the individual to cross the body barrier (Hale, 2008), i.e. to overcome the resistance to act out self-destructive fantasies.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
