The Skin Ego

In this classic work, the author presents and develops his theory of the importance of 'the Skin-ego'. Just as the skin is wrapped around the body, so the author sees the 'Skin-ego' as a psychical wrapping containing, defining and consolidating the subject. From this perspective, the structure and functions of the skin can provide psychoanalysts and general readers with a fertile and practical metaphor. The author's concept of the Skin-ego is the answer to questions he regards as crucial to contemporary psychoanalysis: questions of topography which were left incomplete by Freud; the analysis of fantasies of the container as of the contained; issues of touch between mothers and babies; extending the concept of prohibitions within an Oedipal framework to those derived from a prohibition on touching; and questions pertaining to the representation of the body and to its psychoanalytic setting. This new translation of Le Moi-peau is based on the second and last (1995) edition.

Skin in Psychoanalysis is an important theoretical contribution, revising several authors starting with Freud in whose writing we can now discover multiple direct or indirect references to the skin. It adopts a decidedly complex point of view regarding the skin here: the skin as source, the skin as object, the skin as protection and as a way of entrance, as contact and as contagion, the skin 'for two' within the relationship with the mother, the skin as envelope and as support, as a shell presented as 'second skin', as demarcation of individuality, as a place of inscription of non-verbal memories, toxic envelops and so on. Also, being the result of more than fifteen years of work with dermatologists and patients with skin diseases, psoriasis in particular, the book can be seen as a serious proposal for interdisciplinary work between dermatologists and psychoanalysts.'The hospital is a place where both tragedies and miracles occur, where many people go to heal but many others go in search for punishment.

An interdisciplinary study of skin bridging cultural and psychoanalytic theory to consider how the body's "exterior" is central to human subjectivity and relations. The authors explore racialization, body modification, self-harm, and comedic representations of skin, drawing from the clinical domain, visual arts, popular culture, and literature.

A French analyst discusses the interface between psychoanalysis and psychology. A Skin for Thought takes the form of ten transcribed discussions between Didier Anzieu and Gilbert Tarrab, recorded in Montreal during Anzieu's lecture tour there. A practitioner and theoretician of individual and group analysis, Anzieu speaks frankly of the origins and development of his vocation, the stages of his training, and the evolution of his research, and explains the principal ideas he has developed: group illusion; the psychic tasks of creativity, and 'the Skin Ego'. In answer to Gilbert Tarrab's probing questions, Didier Anzieu recalls the distinctive atmosphere of his childhood, a first analysis with Lacan, the events of May 1968 at Nanterre, his literary ambitions, and his enthusiasm for psychodrama.

The body is an emissary. We know little of our own feelings or the feelings of others, but that ignorance is mediated through our organ of touch, the skin. The term 'consensuality' stands for the co-presence of perceptions on the skin, which is the backcloth to sensation and thought. If the intelligence of the body is the basis of both sense and consent, consensuality also has to do with human relations based on the sense of touch, particularly the mother-child couple and the relation of desire, love and loss. This book touches on a range of cultural figures including Gide, Princess Diana, Kafka, Gautier and Rilke, and such films as Gattaca, The Talented Mr Ripley, Being John Malkovich, The Piano and The Truman Show, together with theories of the caress, phantom limbs and replacement children. Connecting all these is the work of psychoanalyst Didier Anzieu, who wrote on group psychology, psychodrama, psychic envelopes, creativity and thought; he also published a study of May '68 written from the heart of Nanterre. He was analysed by Lacan, not knowing at the time that the latter had treated Anzieu's mother. His Le Moi-peau (The Skin-ego) shows how the psychic skin holds, protects and communicates but can also constrict or tear. If love enwraps and loss flays, how do we mourn?