The effects of object loss on the body image of schizophrenic girls.

Two of the most common difficulties faced by schizophrenic children are' their impairment of self-awareness and their inability to form satisfactory relationships with external objects. The schizophrenic child's impairment of self-awareness is demonstrated by his confused personal identity, a lack of awareness of his body bounda. ries, and by his distorted concepts regarding the structure, contents, and workings of his body . H is disordered object relationships are reflected by unrealistic and distorted perceptions of significant persons with a corresponding unwillingness or inability to form normal attachments to them. The disturbances in attachment behavior range from autistic withdrawal to. attempts to engulf, and obtain exclusive possession of; a significant person. A given child may display both of these extremes alternately. Some of these children are intermittently capable of intermediate phases of more "normal" appearing relatedness, which often proves to be a position of maximum comfort between the polar fears of engulfment and abandonment. These disturbances in the schizophrenic child's view of himself and of others seems to be interrelated. The infant initially regards the external world with its objects as an extension of himself; therefore, early disorders in .the body image will impinge on his relationships with primary objects. Concomitantly, the importance of object relationships in the formation of the body image has been stressed by several observers.