Skin in Psychoanalysis

Skin in Psychoanalysis is an important theoretical contribution, revising several authors starting with Freud in whose writing we can now discover multiple direct or indirect references to the skin. It adopts a decidedly complex point of view regarding the skin here: the skin as source, the skin as object, the skin as protection and as a way of entrance, as contact and as contagion, the skin 'for two' within the relationship with the mother, the skin as envelope and as support, as a shell presented as 'second skin', as demarcation of individuality, as a place of inscription of non-verbal memories, toxic envelops and so on. Also, being the result of more than fifteen years of work with dermatologists and patients with skin diseases, psoriasis in particular, the book can be seen as a serious proposal for interdisciplinary work between dermatologists and psychoanalysts.

'The hospital is a place where both tragedies and miracles occur, where many people go to heal but many others go in search for punishment. It is a place where patients cannot, and should not, question treatment, because doing that will be interpreted as being "on the side" of disease.

'This is perhaps the reason why Jorge Ulnik has devoted his entire professional life to psychosomatics, trying to understand diseases as singular experiences which are inscribed as chapters in the vital history of people. By chance, or due to some unconscious determination, his interest in psychosomatics led him to the dermatology ward, where doctors asked for interconsultations with greater frequency. And in the same way as the skin is the erogenous zone par excellence, it is also the entrance and the exit door for many emotions and situations which mark us.'
- From the Introduction