Apotemnophilia (from Greek αποτέμνειν "to cut off") or BIID is the overwhelming desire to amputate one or more healthy limbs. The conditon can better be called BIID or Body Integrity Identity Disorder, because the "-philia" is a misleading term of this condition being a sexual fetish. Amputation is the removal of a body extremity by trauma or surgery. ...

A person with apotemnophilia wants one or more of his or her limbs cut off. The condition shouldn't be mistaken for a person with acrotomophilia, who is attracted to other persons who are already missing limbs. Apotemnophilia is in fact a word that was wrongly given (in the beginning when it was first discovered) for a condition that now often gets mistaken for something to do with sex or fetishism. Acrotomophilia is a sexual attraction to amputees or others missing limbs. ...

Today, very few surgeons will treat apotemnophilia patients by giving them what they want. There are hence several recorded cases of sufferers resorting to self-amputation of a "superfluous" limb, for example by allowing a train to run over it, or by damaging the limb so badly that surgeons will have to amputate it. Often the obsession is with one specific limb, with patients "not feeling complete while they still have a left leg", for example. The condition is usually treated, unsuccessfully, as a psychiatric disorder. A typical modern surgery operation For other meanings of the word, see Surgery (disambiguation) Surgery (from the Greek cheirourgia - lit. ... Psychiatry is the branch of medicine that diagnoses, treats, and studies mental illness and behavioral conditions. ...

Persons suffering from BIID can be as young as four or five years old when they first discover their condition, i.e by feeling jealous of another amputee.

Some even act out, pretending they are amputees using prostheses and other tools to ease their desire to be one.

There are much more research needed to be done about BIID and apotemnophilia - only a few reports has been done on the subject; but as reseach gains ground, more and more hospitals regognize the condition.

Books

Amputee Identity Disorder: Information, questions answers, and recomendations about self-demand amputation by Gregg M. Furth & Robert Smith (1stBooks)

See also

• body dysmorphic disorder

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental disorder which involves a disturbed body image. ...

External links

• [1]
• The Apotemnophile
• Bensler JM, Paauw DS. Apotemnophilia masquerading as medical morbidity. South Med J. 2003 Jul;96(7):674-6.
• Apotemnophilia and Homeopathy