The Minefield of Emotions

This article applies the approach of the French psychosomaticiens, based on the strict adherence to notions of psychic energy, to the understanding of the death of one woman. Her ultimate fate appeared to be determined by the libidinal exhaustion as a reaction to multiple traumatic experiences throughout her life. This understanding of psychosomatic illness based on quantitative factors-the presence of libido preventing the aims of the death instinct-was first elaborated by Pierre Marty (1968) and subsequently inspired a number of his colleagues, who considered psychosomatic illness to be the result of insufficient libido needed for the fantasies that act as a psychic cushion that can absorb life's vicissitudes.