Mounir Chalhoub & Lela Chikhani-Nacouz 
Acts of the Body [PDF ebook] 
Trilogy on Pathologies of Narcissism Related to the Body

The aim of this work is to show that certain acts related to the body (sport, tattoo, clothing), when practiced to excess, go beyond sanity and aesthetics. Through interviews and the administration of the TAT test to adolescents, the authors return to the origins of these acts and discover at their basis family dysfunction and a rejection of the child. A lacking parental gaze leading to a wrong body image, instability in the parent/child relationship provoking insecurity, and a narcissistic personality linked to the aesthetic of the body explain the adolescents’ dependent passage to these acts of bodybuilding to excess, excessive tattooism and exaggerated mummifism.