Lela Chikhani-Nacouz
Lebanese University II (Fanar) – Psychotherapist, Beirut, Lebanon

Helene Issa
Balamand University, Beirut, Lebanon

Mounir Chalhoub
BEING LCTC, Centre for Psychotherapy, Beirut, Lebanon

Series: Psychology of Emotions, Motivations and Actions
BISAC: HEA047000

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. (Imprint: Novinka )