Beyond the image

By imposing itself as the dominant model of modern medicine, the biomedical model leaves little or no place for the psychical/subjective dimension of illnesses. The author presents a clinical case illustrating the essential contribution psychoanalysis can make to understanding the causes of a serious neurological disorder of indeterminate origin, its psychic determinism and its unconscious dimension. This original contribution argues in favour of the idea that understanding the development of neurological disorders associated with an unexplained lesion cannot be reduced exclusively to the organic level, and must not overlook the notion of unconscious. More generally, it emphasizes that body and mind form an integrated inseparable unit, thus breaking with the traditional dualistic conception of the human being.