THE EXPERIENCE OF THE BODY-SELF IN SCHIZOPHRENIA

One finds in the literature an occasional remark that the seemingly bizarre ideas about one's body which are common in certain forms of schizophrenia may have some sensory basis, but as far as I know the problem has never been investigated. In a previous paper1some of the somatic delusions of a schizophrenic patient were analyzed, and an attempt was made to show that such delusions had a definite perceptual basis consisting of tactile and kinesthetic phenomena which, under certain conditions, can be elicited in normal persons as well. Though only a single subject was analyzed, the opinion was expressed that the symptoms and the mechanism involved are probably not rare phenomena. Since then, new material has accumulated, and it is now possible to deal with the problem in a more comprehensive fashion. Since many of the symptoms to be analyzed in this paper are related to perceptual phenomena