An analysis of the evolution of delusion in a Chinese case of paraphrenia

This article proposes a psychoanalytic approach to interpret the work of Song Shipeng, especially starting from an interrogation on the function of the nomination in the evolution of his delusion. Song was an author suffering from paraphrenia; he published some books writing about his conversations with extraterrestrials and their theory of the Universe. Furthermore, in the last years of his life, he practised a pseudo-medicine, as part of his practice of cosmic energy. His works are full of traces of his personal experience, which open the door to the understanding of the evolution of his delusion. The unifying factor of this examination will be the following hypothesis: Song attempted to compensate for his psychotic crisis, which he regarded as a way to install his “Pseudo-Ego Ideal,” to invent all the delusion by the mnemic traces and to rebuild an identity. Within this perspective, writing could be viewed as enabling the patient to fight against psychotic anxiety, which could take the form of delusion of imagination, of naming oneself, of making a link between his psychotic enigmatic experience, his writing and his thought, and finally, of compensating his ego defect.