Beginning and progression of pica: A thirty-year follow-up of a patient

This descriptive, retrospective and long-term, diachronic and synchronic survey of the beginning and the progression of pica is based on a thirty-year follow-up of a patient and on miscellaneous elements of his file and his care, such as : nurses << observations, psychiatrists >> examinations and interviews, results of various tests. In this patient with antecedents of emotional deprivations and infantile psychosis, the unexpected advent in his twentieth year of a first isolated ingestion of earth is followed by the progressive and insidious settling of pica, leading to serious surgical complications. The treatment of these patients, mentally disabled with severe personality disorders, is given back difficult by the fitting of the environment that imposes the prevention of poisonings and surgical complications.