Le traitement psychique de l'organe transplanté : ingestion, incorporation, sexualisation

Abstract

Very few publications have appeared as yet concerning the study of the psychic stakes involved in an organ transplant of the child, whether they be in French or English language revues. Our aim is thus to contribute to this research by presenting a thorough case study of an eight-year-old child hospitalized for a liver transplant. The analysis of the case follows with a predominantly Freudian theoretical framework where notions of incorporation and ingestion taken from Three Essays on Sexual Theory serve as points of reference. We will see that the psychic treatment reserved for the organ can go from simple ingestion without any real psychic work being accomplished to psychic incorporation which is equivalent to its sexualization by the drive. This pertains on the condition that the graft is part of a chain of partial objects which themselves are organized by what we will call the Oedipal framework.