Expression psychopathologique autour de la chevelure. À propos d'un cas de trichotillomanie

Alceste a nine-year-old boy consults for a trichotillomania, wich is developing since four years. In many cases, the body is the place where childhood expresses its uneasiness. Hair is interface between interior and external reality, between intimacy and social field. Attack on hair, as it is offered to one's sight, seems singular to us. Hair has a huge symbolical value: power and vital strength are often associated with it. It's an element of seduction and erotism but also, in a more general way, of identity and humanity. Gesture related to the hair needs to be studied in this cultural context. We review papers addressing psychoanalytical studies on hairs, from Freud and Anzieu. Winnicott's theory of potential space and transitional phenomena enlights the clinical case of Alceste and the development's failure of the separation and individuation's process.