Apotemnophilia Condition and Its Nature

Body portrayal problems keep on being puzzling and include the anatomical substrate that underlies the psychological portrayal of the body. These problems sit on the limits of neurological and mental disorder. Apotemnophilia or body integrity identity disorder (BIID) is defined by the wild desire to sever at least one functional healthy body part or to be paraplegic. (Fornaro et al., 2020). It shows a shocking reversal of body parts perception, demanding that an apparently sound piece of the body does not belong to them and that they would feel more complete without it. Psychological complications influencing the superior parietal lobule (SPL) have been accounted for to initiate a scope of interruptions of real experience (Longo, 2020). A few patients with right SPL injuries claimed that the whole left half of their body had vanished (Longo, 2020).

The primary logical report of this issue was only reported in 1977, when John Money depicted two cases that mentioned people wanting to remove of a healthy limb, a condition he named apotemnophilia (Novais et al., 2016). It is difficult to identify the real number on the prevalence of such condition since many people do not report the case to their doctors. The beginning of this desire ordinarily happens in youth or pre-adulthood at a mean age of 6-7 years (Tatu & Bogousslavsky, 2017). It is related with constant sensations of dysphoria which are diminished by the longing to amputate a limb or to fake disability. Men appear to be more probable to be influenced than females, however the proportion is imprecise (Tatu & Bogousslavsky, 2017). Significantly, patients want the removal of a left-sided appendage (Tatu & Bogousslavsky, 2017). Thus, apotemnophilia is an uncommon, extraordinarily understudied condition, which obscures the boundaries between psychiatry and nervous system science. Learning about this disorder made me think about how human’s perception of his or her body influences the physical decisions.

References

Fornaro, S., Patrikelis, P., & Lucci, G. (2020). When having a limb means feeling overcomplete. Xenomelia, the chronic sense of disownership and the right parietal lobe hypothesis. Laterality, 1–20. Web.

Longo, M. R. (2020). Body Image: Neural basis of ‘negative’ phantom limbs. Current Biology, 30(11). Web.

Novais, C., Peixoto, M. J., Oliveira, M. M., & Côrte-Real, A. (2016). Apotemnophilia: Psychiatric disorder, neurological disorder or not a disease at all? European Psychiatry, 33(S1). Web.

Tatu, L., & Bogousslavsky, J. (2017). Phantom sensations, supernumerary phantom limbs and apotemnophilia: Three body representation disorders. Frontiers of Neurology and Neuroscience, 14–22. Web.