The need for Obsession / cut a leg

[Guest guest]

Hi,

 

What you say about a sense of not being whole and wanting to become whole makes

sense in connection with both obsessional eating and obsessional amputation.

There are many ways of trying to become whole.

 

Thanks for telling me about your mother and wife's view on the amputation

obsession. A hidden impulse of emotional care is what I would have guessed to be

the psychological aspect of the woman's story too.

Maybe for some, there are impulses of self mutilation or issues of self

punishment as well.

 

 

When watching a program on tv about the gender roles and behavior, one MD

remarked that many males could only remember receiving body contact and

emotional and physical "cuddling" when they were sick during childhood. So many

times, when an adult male felt in emotional distress, the tendency to be more

"sick" once a cold or something similar appeared, could be pronounced, in order

to receive (and also be able to accept) cuddling by wife or girlfriend.

 

Perhaps a similar feeling of lack and wanting this to be expressed as physical

vulnerability (in order for the lack to be fulfilled) is also the basis for some

males' amputation obsession.

 

One could be tempted to believe, the males having this sense of lack and only

being able to express it through wanting a physical disability, missed close and

long time body contact with their mother during infancy / early childhood.

 

I guess you have also read about the animal research projects done in the 60s

where baby monkeys were given the choice of a mommy monkey model made from wire

and containing food and a mommy model covered with warm fur and holding no food.

The baby monkeys invariably chose safety and cuddling from the fur covered model

instead of food and a cold wire "mommy".

Perhaps indicating that the need for emotional security (e.g. a sense of

completeness) is stronger than even the need for food.

 

 

I am sure the raising of a child to become confident of its own and others'

bodies and to be allowed to express vulnerability can go a long way to

convincing a child that it is whole and complete.

When vulnerability and need is not "allowed" to be expressed, but the sense of

lack is still there, it may turn to obsession, depression and/or an overly

strong sense of self pity once things go bad in life. All forms of a sense of

lack, but leading to not only phsyical need but also spiritual need of comfort.

 

I hope you and your wife will accomplish giving your children a sense of

completeness.

A gift to the next generation that many miss.

 

 

Love,

 

Amanda.

 

 

 

 

On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 12:12:14 Antoine Carri wrote:

>From talking to other psychiatrist and surgeons about this (my mother and

>my wife The basic issue in forging this need in the woman you refer to,

>of wanting to have her two legs cut, is most probably on a psychological

>level. Maybe she saw young someone with no legs that had so much attention

>that she did not have in her life. The case may be also neurological, a

>deformation in the structure of the brain or nerves leading for a need to

>have a leg cut from an emotional felt incentive.

>

>The fact that mostly, it is men who want to have member cut, may also lead

>to a correlation that giving birth to a child may bring a sense of

>completeness women generally have that men don't.

>

>I don't have any thoughts as to possible reasons for this obsession. Yet it

>is a cultural fact that mothers, in let's say Tibet or Bali, do not leave

>from an inch the contact in flesh they have with their child in the first

>year. They sleep with them, carry them everywhere on them, etc... and

>contrary as one would tend to believe those child become very independent

>after that first year compared to those who where left alone with no human

>contact. So maybe there is something to find there in the way to raise

>children, if the way one is raise as anything to do with this obsession of

>not feeling complete.

 

 

 

 

 

Angelfire for your free web-based e-mail. http://www.angelfire.com

[Guest guest]

Hello,

 

: What you say about a sense of not being whole and wanting to become whole

makes sense in connection with both obsession eating and obsessional

amputation. There are many ways of trying to become whole.

 

Or in wanting to become different. Even in physics we find the Pauli

Exclusion Principle "in that no two objects can occupy the same space".

 

: Thanks for telling me about your mother and wife's view on the amputation

obsession. A hidden impulse of emotional care is what I would have guessed

to be the psychological aspect of the woman's story too.

: Maybe for some, there are impulses of self mutilation or issues of self

punishment as well.

 

Probably...

 

There is something that fascinates me in meeting a stranger in the street.

As good as I could be, I can not have absolutely no idea of its day to day

life experience, 30, 40 or 50 years ago. I simply have in front of me

someone on who I may project opinions and ideas from my experience, and

feelings that we share.

 

Tg expressing something like "I wanted to move until I found out it was

someone close to me that felt an urge to move", express also a "feeling"

that is common to my day to day life.

 

All this put together, and more, is probably why I like to stay "invisible"

as an observer. It is hard for me to say that this or that occurs for this

or that...

 

I'm simply hypnotized by the beauty of it all.

 

: I hope you and your wife will accomplish giving your children a sense of

completeness.

: A gift to the next generation that many miss.

 

I did not know yet that I was going to have a children

 

: Love,

:

: Amanda.

 

Thank you for your kindness

 

Antoine