The psychotherapy of Abel explores narcissistic defenses mobilized against intrusion by the drives and against objectal investments with their implications for transference and counter-transference. The silenciation of the body and the rejection of every libidinal investment of the ego is a rupture of intersubjectivity. The therapeutic setting then reactivates sensory traces, enabling an exploration of immobility as a narcissistic transformation and an attempt to rediscover the feeling that one exists.

Adolescence, 2025, 43, 1, 49-59.