Right brain damage, body image, and language: A psychoanalytic perspective

The right hemisphere syndrome refers to various disturbances in patients' r elationships with space and body due to right hemisphere lesions. While the psychological aspects of this syndrome have been discussed at length in th e literature, the relevance of the Lacanian psychoanalytic notion of specul ar image (the image that is acquired from the mirror phase and permits the subject to identify with a whole body image while being unaware of his or h er real body) has not yet been considered. The present study is an attempt co evaluate, in a case report, whether the right hemisphere syndrome has su bjective coherence regarding the pathology of the specular image. The patie nt described here exhibited anosodiaphoria, hemineglect, and. personificati on of his hand. From the words and self-portrait of the patient, gathered d uring semi-directive interviews, we concluded that the patient's specular i mage was split into an "hemi-injured" image and an object-like hemibody dep rived of its symbolic value. In this case, anosodiaphoria and hemineglect s eem to contribute in different ways to the repression of this intrusive app earance of the real body.