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The human body has several methods to release the tension generated by temporary frustration. Used regularly as a response, such methods will become the only way out of a tense situation. Some persons experience an altered consciousness and perception of one's body, rendering inter-subjectivity and self-reflection impossible. We can then ask ourselves how the symbolic dimension can be accessed to enable psychical elaboration. According to the Lacanian theory, psychoanalytic therapy will have to replace imaginary self-knowledge by a symbolic self-knowledge, for imaginary knowledge hinders the subject's access to symbolic knowledge. In the analytic therapy of the individuals suffering from somatic symptom disorder, the solution refers especially to the behavioural component, while the representations, even if present, concern the body and the way it works in a more or less illusive manner. As, by means of interpretation, the subject accesses their emotions and the relational experience thus expressed, the relational somatic functioning will be replaced by the psychic functioning and representations will lose their corporeal content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]