Reduplication phenomena: Body, mind and archetype

The many biological, and few psychodynamic explanations of reduplicative sy ndromes tend to have paralleled the dualism of the phenomenon with organic theories concentrating on form and dynamic theories emphasising content; Th is paper extends the contribution of psychoanalytic thinking to an elucidat ion of the form of the delusion. Literature on clinical and aetiological as pects of reduplicative phenomena is reviewed alongside a brief examination of psychoanalytic models not overtly related to these phenomena. The human experience of doubles as universal archetype is considered. There is an obv ious aetiological role for brain lesions in delusional misidentifications, but psychological symptoms in an individual can rarely be reduced to an org anic disorder. The splitting and doubling which occurs in the phenomena hav e resonances in cultural mythology and in theories from different schools o f psychodynamic thought. For the individual patient and doctor, it is a div erting bur potentially empty debate to endeavour to draw strict divisions b etween what is physical and what is psychological although both need to be investigated. Nevertheless, in patients in whom there is clear evidence of an organic contribution to aetiology a psychodynamic understanding may serv e to illuminate the patient's experience. Organic brain disease or serious functional illness predispose to regressio n to earlier modes of archetypical and primitive thinking with concretizati on of the metaphorical and mythological world. psychoanalytic models have a contribution in describing the form as well as the content of reduplicativ e phenomena.