Apotemnophilia: a strong craving to cut off one's own healthy part(s) of the body

Apotemnophilia is probably one of those diseases you've never heard of. This is because it is a very rare and unusual mental disease. The disease is characterised by a strong desire to amputate own healthy parts of the body. Did I hear that right? Who would want to do wrip off one's own legs or arms, or even worse... for the guys amongst us?! Not many obviously, but there are some few people (a few thousand people to be more precisely) who will try to do everything to succeed in this.

 The causes of Apothemnophilia

Another question that has probably raised in your head is: why would people want to loose healthy limbs or other parts of the body? Many patients who suffer from this disease answer this question by saying that they feel the specific body part does not belong to them. Furthermore, the cause of this disease is often stated to be found in a strong craving to attract attention to oneself or sexual perversion; the amputation fetich is often seen as a form to search for sexual satisfaction. In addition to this, the disease is also often explained by an identification during early childhood with a person who is missing a limb.

Research has also shown that the brain can probably play a big role in causing this disease. When studying four male patients lying under a brain scan, the parietal lobe (an area in the upper-right part of the brain) showed no activity when they were touched on their unwanted feet. The parietal lobe plays an important role in integrating the image one has of him/herself in the brain. Clearly, for patients suffering from Apotemnophilia their leg, including their feet, are just not part of who they are.

Severe consequences

Often, however in vain, patients try to ask a surgeon to amputate the unwanted body part(s), so that the amputation can be done in a (relatively) painless and secure manner. Sergeons refuse these kinds of requests to remove a healthy body part, following the principle to cause no damage. Unfortunately, patients do not always accept that the body part has to be left in place and start trying to remove the part themselves. This mostly happens in manners that are very dangerous and damaging. There has been a case in which a patient put his leg in a barrel with dry ice for as long as necessary, so that sergeons had no other choice than to amputate the leg. Other extreme methodes that have been used are building a guillotine and placing the limb in this construction, using a chain saw to cut off the limb or placing the limb on the rails to wait for a train to remove it.


Apothemnophilia is a very unusual disease for which it is difficult to emphatise with or fully understand patients suffering from it. However, these patients are still people, who breath, laugh, cry, feel, and walk (ok, not always), just like us. Unfortunately something went wrong in a little area in their brain which causes them to lead a dangerous life on the edge. They cannot help it and don't want to be seen as something that is non-human. Although they see one part of them as not being part of being the person they are, the rest of them is still a person. We ask society to step out of their own perspectives and treat people with various (unusual) diseases as they are worth to be treated: as people.

In the following short documentary of BBC (which contains no unpleasant images) you can see that people suffering from Apothemnophilia are just normal people like us. In this movie, a woman suffering from this disease explains she lives a very ordinary life; she has good job and a stable homelife.

Are you shocked by the documentary and by the symptoms of this mental disease? Do you think the woman in the movie can indeed live a normal life, as she says she does, although she suffers from Apothemnophilia? Are you able to empathise with patients suffering from this disease and can you understand their desires? We are interested in your opinion, so don't hesitate to leave a comment.