First Carved-up, Later Reconstructed, Nonetheless Different from What She Had Before: Discussion of Paolo Stramba-Badiale’s Hope and Uncertainty. The Subjective Experience of the Body During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper is a discussion of the therapeutic process in the case presented in Paolo Stramba-Badiale’s paper Hope and Uncertainty. The Subjective Experience of the Body During the Covid-19 Pandemic. The patient’s face was disfigured by the surgical treatment of cancer. This discussion considers psychosomatic perspectives of European and African theoreticians and integrates Kohut’s concept of the somatic self with more recent concepts of psychoanalytic Self Psychology. The patient’s psychological healing process, mediated through the therapeutic relationship with her analyst, combined with the paradoxical impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and their impact on the eventual integration of her disfigured face—her injured body self—into her whole self, will be explored.