Alain Abelhauser

Disclosure of HIV seropositivity

Deciding whether or not to disclose ones HIV-positive status to another person is an important decision: the way each person experiences and copes with the illness is reflected in this choice. We conducted a study of 174 patients (29.3% of women) to examine how the decision to disclose or conceal was made, as well as its subjective and social consequences. We discovered that only 3.5% of the individuals remained silent about their illness. Most spoke about it, regardless of how they had been infected or of the advice they had received to be discrete. The confession often did not bring them the relief they sought. Revealing ones HIV-positive status is not a sign of social responsibility, or of a special trust in someone, but rather a compulsive act to release suppressed tension. Individuals who do not confess need attention; their silence is a sign of their inability to adapt to their illness, as well as of their self-imposed exclusion from society.

Pathologies factices et vérité subjective

Resume Les « troubles factices avec symptomes physiques , tels que les definit le DSM-IV, forment un ensemble assez peu homogene des quon y regarde de pres. Y sont regroupes plusieurs syndromes decrits independamment les uns des autres. Sontils a considerer comme des formes voisines dune meme entite, ou, au contraire, comme temoignant de problematiques bien distinctes ? Revenir a lhistoire du reperage de ces symptomes savere particulierement eclairant pour repondre a cette question. Les cas princeps rapportes presentent en effet chacun quelques traits specifiques, que lusage ulterieur a eu en general tendance a gommer, et quil importe de refaire saillir. On peut montrer, a partir de la, que la « position subjectivedes pathomimes nest pas a confondre avec celle des patients presentant un « syndrome de Munchhausen , qui nest elle-meme pas identique a celle des femmes touchees par le « syndrome de Lasthenie de Ferjol . La presentation de trois cas originaux nous permettra dinterroger autant la pertinence clinique que les limites dun tel decoupage. Elle nous conduira aussi a saisir que ce qui differencie en fait le plus nettement ces trois syndromes — et ce qui les repartit le long dun continuum allant de lautomutilation a la mythomanie — repose sur deux points : dune part, le rapport quentretient a chaque fois le sujet avec lAutre (et en particulier lAutre presentifie sous la figure du medecin) ; dautre part, le statut que prend dans chaque cas son corps propre. Cest precisement la prise en compte de ces deux elements qui nous permettra, pour finir, de discuter le type de structure psychique dans lequel sinscrit chacun de ces troubles. Puis, au-dela meme de cette discussion, de souligner ce qui constitue malgre tout leur unite, et surtout leur interet essentiel: temoigner, par ce raccourci quoffre la pathologie, que le corps, comme « Autre , est bien ce qui permet a tout sujet de construire son identite comme alterite, cest-a-dire dans une forme irreductible de perte a soi-meme.

Aux limites de l'hystérie, la douleur chronique

This paper presents a reflection on the etiology and treatment of chronic pain from a psychoanalytic perspective. We discuss the reduction of chronic pain to a contemporary manifestation of hysteria. Considering a symptom as a specific form of jouissance and a way of inscribing the individual in a social bond, the text emphasizes the function of pain based on the specific aspects of each case.

At the limits of hysteria, chronic pain

This paper presents a reflection on the etiology and treatment of chronic pain from a psychoanalytic perspective. We discuss the reduction of chronic pain to a contemporary manifestation of hysteria. Considering a symptom as a specific form of jouissance and a way of inscribing the individual in a social bond, the text emphasizes the function of pain based on the specific aspects of each case.

En los límites de la histeria, el dolor crónico

This paper presents a reflection on the etiology and treatment of chronic pain from a psychoanalytic perspective. We discuss the reduction of chronic pain to a contemporary manifestation of hysteria. Considering a symptom as a specific form of jouissance and a way of inscribing the individual in a social bond, the text emphasizes the function of pain based on the specific aspects of each case.

Nos limites da histeria, a dor crônica

This paper presents a reflection on the etiology and treatment of chronic pain from a psychoanalytic perspective. We discuss the reduction of chronic pain to a contemporary manifestation of hysteria. Considering a symptom as a specific form of jouissance and a way of inscribing the individual in a social bond, the text emphasizes the function of pain based on the specific aspects of each case.

O CORPO É A ALMA

Resumo: Por tras da tradicional oposicao entre o corpo e a alma, convidamos, inicialmente, a ler uma forma de identidade: com todo o rigor (psicanalitico), o corpo e a alma, desde que se esquecam as exigencias de um pensamento petrificado pela recusa da morte. Tal ideia leva tanto a recusar a nocao mesma de “psicossomatica” como a reconhecer que o corpo preenche para o sujeito certas funcoes – que sao muito especificamente essas que Lacan imputa normalmente ao Outro. A prova disso e a radical estranheza do corpo, seu ex-timo. Assim, deduz-se que seus ataques constituem tanto lembretes dessa estranheza quanto reativacoes desta funcao da alteridade, fiadora da incompletude subjetiva. A partir disso revela-se, igualmente, um pouco melhor, o que muda atualmente no papel atribuido a estes ataques, figuras da nossa “modernidade”. Palavras-chave: corpos; morte; alteridade; estranheza; modernidade. Abstract: Behind the traditional opposition between body and soul, the paper initially invites you to read a form of identity: with all the (psychoanalytic) rigor, the body is the soul, if one forgets the requirements of a thought petrified by the denial of death. This idea leads either to reject the very notion of ”psychosomatic” or to recognize that the body fulfills certain functions for the subject - those that are specifically usually imputed by Lacan to the Other. The proof is the radical strangeness of the body, its ex-timate. Thus, it is deductible that its attacks are both reminders of his strangeness and otherness and the reactivation of this function, cosigner of the subjective incompleteness. Thus, is revealed also, a little better, what changes in the role currently assigned to these attacks, pictures of our “modernity.” Keywords: bodies; death; otherness; strangeness; modernity.