The scarifications as regulation of the relationship to the world

• Main Author: David Le Breton
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Università di Napoli Federico II 2016-08-01
• Series: La camera blu
• Online Access: http://www.camerablu.unina.it/index.php/camerablu/article/view/3994

The adolescence  imposes physical changes raising the question of the others’ look on the young man or on the young woman becoming, of the opening to the desire and to the genital. His/her body escapes from his/her control, at the same time his/her status is now situated in the social link. By changing his/her appearance, the young makes the skin as a scene where he/she projects a temporary or permanent identity searching for his/her character. It is a tool of self-experimentation, of exploration of the characters. The skin is a scraped border if the symbolic boundaries, between the self and the others, between the inner world and the social reality, are struggling to establish, because it encloses into an unbearable identity which he/she wishes to escape, whose self-inflicted bodily wounds are testimony.