title: Incomplete oedipism and chronic suicidality in psychotic depression with paranoid delusions related to eyes.
abstract: Self-enucleation or oedipism is a term used to describe self-inflicted enucleation. It is a rare form of self-mutilation, found mainly in acutely psychotic patients. We propose the term incomplete oedipism to describe patients who deliberately and severely mutilate their eyes without proper enucleation. We report the case of a 32-year-old male patient with a five-year history of psychotic depression accompanied by paranoid delusions centered around his belief that his neighbors criticized him and stared at him. A central feature of his clinical picture was an eye injury that the patient had caused by pouring molten lead into his right eye during a period of deep hopelessness and suicidality when the patient could not resolve his anhedonia and social isolation. Pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy dramatically improved his disorder.
authors.affiliation: McLean Hospital-Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. maurizio.pompili@uniroma1.it
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pompili
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lester
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tatarelli
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Girardi