Abstract

This paper includes a case study which aimed to understand, analyze, and improve self-harming (cutting) behaviors of a female patient. One of the purposes of the study was to find out the theoretical perspectives that could help understand and explain the aggressive behaviors in my self-harming patient. For this, I gathered and reviewed the existing psychoanalytic theories on aggression; these theories tended to look at the origin and nature of the aggressive drive. I then described Fonagy's theory of mentalization and affect regulation, in addition to other theories on representational/self-reflective function. Based on these theories, which focused on the function of aggression, I investigated the pathological aspect of aggression as a failure of the defensive process of aggression. Lastly, I described the therapeutic work done with the patient over the course of two years. The therapy process was psychoanalytically-oriented because it intended to promote therapeutic alliance, analyze/interpret transference, and countertransference, and create the intersubjective process in developing the patient's psychological self.