Abstract
The authors' intention is to illustrate the case of two patients treated for anaemia caused by a bleeding cunningly baited and repeated, the origin of which has only been found after several surgical explorations. Even if the splenectomy, the gastrotomy, and in one case, the ablation of the colon has been made, the symptoms have remained unchanged.
In presuming that this syndrome, seldom discussed in the medical literature, is chiefly found amongst the para-medical personnel, they first try to describe the profile of a such typical personality, then they develop a phenomenological and a dynamic approach. They assume that for these patients the anaemia answers to a need to be explored in order to get rid of a bad introjected object.
In the case they have studied the patient presents a pre-psychotic personality with a poor prognosis; this is due to the difficulty of establishing an adequate transference and to a certain ambivalent motivation toward the treatment.
Evolution toward a paranoid syndrome or the event of a suicidal acting out are amongst the most likely complications.