PSYCHOSES IN PATIENTS WITH EDEMA

Distortion of the body image due to the presence of edema consistently gives rise to ideas of unpleasant emotional tone. There is a tendency to reject and disown the edematous parts of the body, to repress the knowledge of the distortion of the body image, and to project onto others the responsibility for the disfigurement of the body and the unusual somatic sensations. The fear that parts of the body will burst ultimately leads the edematous, psychotic patient to the conclusions that his body is being injured, that all people are being killed, and that the material world is being demolished. Ideas of bursting, cutting, exploding and other disruptive processes constantly recur in the content of the psychoses. These are the dominant themes characteristic of the psychoses which occur in edematous patients.