Abstract
A Summary of this Endnote: Near the end of A Curious Case of Neuropathy, note 99 listed seven possible reasons a dissociative patient, such as Estelle, may not want her recovery to go well. Estelle claimed to be losing weight and not growing taller, yet she refused to be weighed or measured. Despine and her Mother, then, took some measurements without Estelle’s knowledge, compared them privately with each other, and were gratified by the incremental growth of her limbs. Despine noted the gradual restoration of Estelle’s organ systems and their functions, as he noted in other patients such as Sophie La Roche. For more than four years in Virieu, Sophie had been crippled. In Aix, people were typically drawn to her angelic sweetness and pale coloring. But when Sophie was in a crisis state, she manifested terrible anguish. Despine discreetly mentioned the development of Sophie’s breasts by noting that, when she arrived in Aix, she resembled one of Raphael’s virgins, even when she was lying flat on her back in bed. As her health returned, her breasts became smaller. Finally she lost most of what Despine called the rounded and very gracious forms her visitors had admired.
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© 2008 Joanne M. McKeown and Catherine G. Fine
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McKeown, J.M., Fine, C.G. (2008). Endnote 14: Patients’ Weight, Skin, Hair, Etc.. In: McKeown, J.M., Fine, C.G. (eds) Despine and the Evolution of Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230616981_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230616981_17
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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