L'expérience du corps vécu dans la paranoïa

Abstract

The concept of Paranoia is almost synonymous with a certain “interpretative” style, whether it refers to emotionally disturbed or frankly manic states. This intellectualization, which is to a large extent a result of the psychopathological matrix from which Paranoia issued has in fact limited comprehension of the latter, in particular as regards the two following aspects: on the one hand, the distinction between a “sectorial” manic state that nevertheless has a marked confiscatory effect on the person's entire existence and a “network-associated” delirium that remains compatible with a certain social integration; and on the other hand, the marginalization of the hypochondria that is frequently observed in these patients and which may include a possible accusatory component (e.g. laying the blame on the therapist and associated structures for inadequate treatment) or a “neurosis” that sometimes replaces the patient's passionate or delirious attitude for a period of time. The phenomenological concept of the “opaque body” provides a certain reply to these questions: it shows that the body plays major role in Paranoia, as it represents the constitutive limit of the “truth” the paranoid subject seeks, and it also acts as a transmitter of signals – both mimico-gestural and verbal – through which the patient attempts to circumvent such a limit. The marginal role assumed by hypochondria then alters to become one of the body's possible means of physical expression of Paranoia; it does not manifest itself as an “other” illness that sometimes replaces the former, but rather as a continuation of the paranoid state including a reversal of roles, with the patient acting as persecutor and the therapist becoming the object of persecution. Thus one could qualify as Paranoia any pathological interpretative situation characterized by the persistence of an “opaque body”; and exclude the type of situations in which the body has become transparent to the patient's intuition as it has to the hallucinations of the paranoid subject.