Through the description of a clinical case, the Author aims to reflect upon self-cutting, which is nowadays largely spread out among teenagers and young adults, and more generally on severe pathologies that involve extensive use of the body as a vehicle for communicating primitive self experiences. She also discusses the peculiarities of the pschoanalytical setting to be co-created with the patient in the treatment of serious illnesses, whose level of primitive destructiveness threatens not only their lives but also the chances of cure.
Keywords: Self-cutting in adolescence, setting in severe psychopatologies, primary masochism, death narcissism.