<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/ce21d8bf-e30e-4667-9982-d5213d68d0a1/58DB697B-0FCE-408A-B289-4232479CACD1/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-who-yearn-for-amputation-of.html" href="http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-who-yearn-for-amputation-of.html" style="font-size: 11px;">bps-research-digest.blogspot.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-who-yearn-for-amputation-of.html">In the late Summer of 1997, the surgeon Robert Smith <A href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/632856.stm">deliberately amputated</A> the healthy lower left leg of his patient, 38-year-old Kevin Wright, who had been yearning for this outcome since childhood.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-who-yearn-for-amputation-of.html"><div align="center"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/img/05ED0F69-80B5-43E9-B6E5-99389D080348" alt="" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-who-yearn-for-amputation-of.html"><BR /><DIV>Back then, Wright's condition was judged to be a form of <A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_dysmorphic_disorder">body dysmorphic disorder</A> - a psychiatric diagnosis characterised by an irrational belief that there is something defective with a body part.</DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-who-yearn-for-amputation-of.html"> but in a new study, <A href="http://lnco.epfl.ch/page58626.html">Olaf Blanke</A></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-who-yearn-for-amputation-of.html"> amputation desire might be more accurately construed as a neurological syndrome, related to a dysfunction in the way the body is represented in the fronto-parietal circuits of the brain - a condition they've labelled "body integrity identity disorder".</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-who-yearn-for-amputation-of.html"> the condition appeared to have much in common with <A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity_disorder">gender identity disorder</A>, which is associated with a desire to change sex.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-who-yearn-for-amputation-of.html">Among the patients' descriptions of their amputation desire </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-who-yearn-for-amputation-of.html"> "It [the leg] feels foreign and it does not belong to me", </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2009/09/people-who-yearn-for-amputation-of.html"> "My leg is somehow too much, I am not connected to my body".</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/58DB697B-0FCE-408A-B289-4232479CACD1/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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