Focal Suicide: Self-Enucleation by Two Young Psychotic Individuals

Abstract

The authors discuss two patients who self-enucleated during psychotic episodes. Both patients had had sexual experiences that they believed to be sinful and a history of LSD use. The authors hypothesize that the patients needed to assuage their guilty consciences by sacrifice, in this case a substitution of the eye for the self. They connect their hypothesis to the Bible, myth, religion, and talion law.