Citation

Pompili M, Lester D, Tatarelli R, Girardi P. Ann. Gen. Psychiatry 2006; 5(2): 18.

Affiliation

McLean Hospital-Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. maurizio.pompili@uniroma1.it

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group - BMC)

DOI

10.1186/1744-859X-5-18

PMID

9199749

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.

Language: en