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In this paper, I set out to describe the different viewpoints, conceptualisations and defence mechanisms of the state of passivity; the categorisation by Freud; how the perspective of his thinking was altered by later insights and clinical observations; the close connection between the superego, passivity and masochism; the significance of the internal object world for Melanie Klein; countertransference as a means of access to masochism and destructiveness, with the aid of a short case illustration; and, finally, Betty Joseph's clinical experiences in work with her patients.

Masochism is central to all pathologies and its relevance in clinical practise cannot be underestimated. The initial connection made by Freud was that masochism was a component or partial instinct, still operating within the pleasure principle. The relationship between masochism and the theory of drives marks a main theoretical difference in the different authors' explorations of this subject. The understanding of what is meant by 'masochism' gained complexity following Freud's postulation of a life and death drive (which is more or less contemporary with his 1924 paper on masochism) and the differences made by him between 'primary' and 'secondary' masochism. This introduction to the papers presented in this section will address some of these differences, as well as exploring the notions of primary erotogenic masochism, feminine and moral masochism. It will also look at the notion of binding /unbinding of the life/death drives, and the role of the superego. It will introduce the different papers by Novick and Novick, Bourdin, Frank and Persano on developmental perspectives, primary masochism, views on French analysts such as Benno Rosenberg and on Kleinian ideas on the subject as well as on the role of the body, pain and self harm.

Masochistic elements are puzzling entanglements for most of us in the beginning. Taking Melanie Klein's attempts to think about them thus show one way how to make sense of them. Starting from her struggles with masochistic symptoms in child analyses in the early 1920ies Melanie Klein tried to conceptualize those experiences in a way that could help to fact them in the analytic process. In this article the development is outlined, the move from thinking about them in libidinal terms to gradually grasping in greater depth their destructive quality. She speaks of an "evil principle" and then finds a conclusive solution in conceptualizing masochism as a representation of the death drive. In the next decades her followers would further work on the complexities of the countertransference issues and superego organizations in masochism in more detail as will be shown. Finally, a look in a piece of present analytic work will exemplify the clinical usefulness of the Kleinian conceptualization.

This paper attempts to address self-harm from a psychoanalytic perspective in contemporary clinical practice and their relationship with aggression, impulsiveness, violence, and masochism. Self-harm is frequent in adolescents and young people, predominantly in feminine gender. The author describes the different manifestations of self-injurious behaviors in the contemporary clinic, its manifestation in adolescents and its relationship with psychopathology. Self-harm is a way of communication, through actions, to deal with psychic pain and with the self-vulnerability. Self-harm behaviors are a manifestation of psychic tension that results overwhelming, intolerable and its discharge relieves the subject suffering, although this way is ephemeral. Suffering is linked to childhood traumatic experiences, where the self of the infant was cathected with a greater amount of aggression than erotic libido. The author states that affective aggression is triggered by emotions like anger, sadness, and emptiness. Archaic masochism is a form of identification with the aggressor and a turn against oneself aggression commonly associated with episodes of child abuse. Also, it argues that the violence linked to self-injury is intersubjective fabric in nature and requires an interdisciplinary approach.

Benno Rosenberg's work has been little translated into English. Yet, his work on masochism is a landmark in France. He set himself the goal of deploying all the richness and implications of the second Freudian drive theory and the introduction of the death drive. He therefore returns to "the Economic Problem of Masochism" to give all its value to the drive fusion that it achieves internally and which is therefore for it "guardian of life", even if it is can also be fatal. He draws consequences on the psychic construction of the ego, the superego and on that of temporality. He also describes a "work of melancholy" which is different from mourning. Thinking it necessary to push the consequences of the new theorizing further than Freud was able to do, he revisits "Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety" to articulate the triggering of anxiety by a libidinal demand and the threat to the unity of the ego who comes from the death drive due to conflict. Starting from the psychosomatic descriptions of Pierre Marty, whose options are specified, he also proposed a metapsychology of somatization during the overflow of the psyche by the destructiveness which will then threaten the body.

This text presents how Freud thinks about the masochism. In 1915, it is the return of active sadism in a passive drive which is characteristic of masochism, always secondary. In 1919, he sees in masochism the genesis of perversions. And the article of 1924 knows a primary masochism and distinguishes erotogenic masochism, feminine masochism and moral masochism. After Freud, many studies of clinical forms of masochism can be noted, and in France there is a thesis about the masochism as a first psychic link (Benno Rosenberg, Marilia Aisenstein).

This article explores defensive modes of masochism based through the case study of Sarah, a 25-year-old patient who is regularly followed in psychoanalytical therapy. I will postulate the idea that fetishization of moral masochism should be seen from the perspective of melancholic processes. Drawing on several moments of her therapy, I will illustrate how the primitive idealization of the introjected and denigrated object in the melancholic process lays the conditions for a decisive moral masochism, and whose unconscious idealization defends against depressive breakdown.

On the threshold between loss and its representation: masochism as a defence against the risk of depression. This article explores defensive modes of masochism based through the case study of Sarah, a 25-year-old patient who is regularly followed in psychoanalytical therapy. I will postulate the idea that fetishization of moral masochism should be seen from the perspective of melancholic processes. Drawing on several moments of her therapy, I will illustrate how the primitive idealization of the introjected and denigrated object in the melancholic process lays the conditions for a decisive moral masochism, and whose unconscious idealization defends against depressive breakdown.

This paper provides an overview of narcissistic personality disorders as they present clinically along a spectrum of severity ranging from the best functioning forms of pathological narcissism to the most threatening to the patient's psychosocial and physical survival. It proposes a general interpretive psychoanalytic stance with all these clinical syndromes that range from standard psychoanalysis to a specific psychoanalytical psychotherapy for the most repressive and life threatening conditions that may not respond to standard psychoanalysis proper. This general psychoanalytic approach is placed into the context of related developments in contemporary psychoanalytic understanding of pathological narcissism and its treatment., (Copyright © 2014 Institute of Psychoanalysis.)

This paper is a meditation on the potential and problems of establishing and maintaining loving and passionate relationships, drawn from a lifetime of struggling with these issues in the course of doing analysis. It describes interferences with the capacity for mature sexual love as reflecting various psychopathological conditions. These limitations include a variety of psychological restrictions determined most frequently by masochistic, narcissistic and paranoid personality features. Clinical case material illustrates both mature and disturbed capability for love relations., (Copyright © 2011 Institute of Psychoanalysis.)

The author discusses the traditional interpretations of the principal dramatis personae in Verdi's Rigoletto, suggesting that the opera expresses the composer's unconscious but highly perceptive and intuitive exploration of: (i) paranoid and perverse father-daughter oedipal dynamics as enacted between Rigoletto and Gilda; (ii) a folie-à-deux sado-masochistic relationship between Rigoletto and the Duke; (iii) the avoidance of conscious guilt and responsibility for Rigoletto's part in the tragedy through the rejection of insight achieved via massive projection, an addiction to mania, and perversion. In this respect Rigoletto is compared with King Lear. Some technical aspects of Verdi's compositional style employed to portray the contrasting characters of the protagonists are analysed. The paper also touches on Verdi's own possible unconscious (as well as conscious) investment in this particular opera, noting similarities between Verdi's portrait of the tragic, hunchback jester and his own self-depiction. The author notes similarities and contrasts between his analysis of the opera and recent papers by Hudson (1992),Tarnopolsky (1995)and Bergstein (2003)on the same subject., (Copyright © 2010 Institute of Psychoanalysis.)

It is a matter of common knowledge that Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) shared a common worldview. Everyone familiar with the works of these two thinkers should recognize their general philosophical affinities. Both men were pessimistic about the power of human reason and attributed human behavior to powerful unconscious forces and, as a result, both were deeply skeptical about the future of human society. Drawing from previous literature, this essay compares the philosophical theory of Schopenhauer with the psychoanalytic theory of Freud. We find that, while Schopenhauer and Freud share a common philosophical orientation and diagnosed the same fundamental problems with life in civilization, they proposed some ostensibly similar, yet ultimately very different solutions. Focusing on each thinker's respective notion of sadism and masochism, this paper tries to understand and come to terms with the dimensions of this radical pessimism., (Copyright © 2011 Institute of Psychoanalysis.)

This theoretical paper revisits the beating fantasy, which constitutes a crossroads of the psychic economy in that it condenses three primal phantasies, namely the primal scene, castration and seduction. Two forms of the phantasy have been distinguished: a 'fixed' form, apparently associated with the masochistic perversion, and a 'transitory' form, probably bound up with libidinal development. In Freud 's (1919) paper these two aspects are intertwined. The present contribution confines itself to the transitory form of the phantasy and its significance in the libidinal development of the girl, notably in the organization of passivity. With this in mind, particular attention is paid to the phantasy's third phase in this context, and an attempt made to show how this phase epitomizes the transformation of the instinctual pressure and might therefore be looked upon in this connection as the intermediate phase of the phantasy.

The author studies the intersubjective links which the pervert maintains with analyst or partner, attempting to indicate the differences between the investments in each case. Rather than accepting that empathy towards these patients is impossible to achieve and disturbs the countertransference profoundly, it attempts to show that these difficulties may be overcome if they are reinterpreted in the light of the theory of the intersubjective link. The author examines the theories and the practice of intersubjectivity and gives a definition of his approach to the link between two subjects. He applies these ideas to the case of a sexually masochistic female patient. The countertransference is marked successively by indifference, rejection and smothering. The analysis of the analyst's dream allows the situation to evolve. Failures in primary identification can result in domination over others and utilitarianism. The author examines the place of the challenge to the 'Law' and the father (in the attempt by the patient to put a theory to the test) in order to identify the figure of the witness in the pervert's intersubjective links. The desire of the transference would be marked by the figure of the witness rather than by that of the analyst as accomplice.

The author believes that unconscious sexual excitement in the transference and countertransference is an especially problematic aspect of the analysis of perverse character pathology and that perverse sexual gratification deserves a more prominent position in the clinical theory of analyzing perversion than that which has been assigned tacitly through analysts' routine focus on the defensive and destructive dynamics of perversion. He presents clinical material from the analysis of a perverse patient that illustrates the role of excitement in the transference perversion established in this analysis; and he asserts that gratifying perverse enactments occurring in the transference perversion can appear not only as conscious or unconscious excitement in the transference but also, at times most clearly, as the analyst's excitement. The author suggests that using a clinical theory that supports the analyst in understanding his excited responses as perverse countertransferences--i.e. evoked excitement complementary to the sexual component of a perverse transference--will assist him in locating and thinking about gratifying, perverse excitement in the transference where it is most usefully analyzed. Finally, he discusses some of the reasons why analysts might deny, suppress or otherwise avoid perverse countertransferences and in so doing contribute to sustaining perverse resistances.

Sophocles's Philoctetes (409 BCE) is a dramatic masterpiece unfamiliar to most analysts. The play presents a complex portrait of self-injurious spite of heroic dimensions as it touches on issues of intense shame, feelings of helplessness and the refusal of forgiveness. Sophocles's protagonist, Philoctetes, is a man who, like some of our patients, refuses to be healed. He intends, through his continued sickness and misery, to exact revenge against those who mistreated him. These are recognizable clinical issues, playing roles in every psychoanalytic treatment, issues that may assume a special importance in protracted, stalemated or aborted analyses. There are patients who damage the analyst by damaging the analysis they are in, a malevolent project often undertaken in revenge for wrongs suffered during childhood. This paper links Sophocles's drama to these vitally important clinical considerations through the discussion of a particular case.

A resistance to self-observation and self-reflection is discussed in which there is a perversion of the observing ego. The observing ego has been unconsciously recruited in the service of enacting an unconscious fantasy: the fantasy of being an excited observer of a primal scene who is punished for making forbidden observations. This voyeuristic observing ego is pathologically enmeshed in a love triangle with the patient's seductive superego (i.e. identification with the desired but unfaithful parent) and with the patient's punitive superego (i.e. identification with the rivalrous parent). This unconscious scenario is played out in the clinical situation as the patient unreflectively cycles through phases of denial (i.e. self-seduction) and moral masochism (i.e. self-betrayal). A case study illustrates how humor may be employed to free the observing ego from being enthralled by a perverse superego. Humor may unconsciously enable a rebellious attitude toward the omnipotent sadism of a perversely oppressive superego and thus enable the observing ego to break free from its pathological enmeshment.

The author argues that what he terms transition and what he will call transience go together quite often, but that analysis usually discuss transition rather than transience. In the first half of this paper, he examines Ukiyo-e and Japanese myths and folk tales, so as to introduce the Japanese concept of transience and its pathological connotation. In the second half, he quotes two treatments of self-destructive patients to show the importance of understanding the negative and positive aspects of transience in psychoanalytical terms. He concludes that masochistic identification with the transitory figure(s) can take place along with limitless accumulation of debt, causing everything, including one's own self, to be felt as transient. He points out that a Japanese word 'Arigatou', which is almost equivalent to 'thank you' in English, literally means 'difficult to exist', and thus the importance in Japan of appreciating the transience of valuable things. He considers that while readers may be reminded of Winnicott's discussion of transitional objects, transition is a phenomenological description of movement, while transience is mainly an emotional state, or one of painful feeling. Transience, he believes, is not only a feature of Japanese clinical phenomena but also universal.

The interminable project, such as an unfinished manuscript in the drawer, is a familiar affliction in populations of writers, artists and intellectuals. An unrelenting absorption in such a project consuming whole decades of one's life distinguishes this plight from more benign varieties of work inhibition. The interminable project lends itself to a real dilemma of a double life. A case of a female writer and lecturer is presented, in which a longstanding unfinished manuscript figures as a principal complaint. In addition to familiar developmental conflicts, which psychoanalysis finds in psychopathologies of ambition and achievement, the analysis of this patient called for particular attention to various gains of the symptom itself; for example, its lending feasibility to the patient's alternative career by making of it something less ideal and therefore less crucial than it otherwise would have been. Moreover, the harrowing consumption of time that characterises such symptoms was also maintaining a state of moral masochism that gratified the patient's subdued ambivalence towards the analyst and the analysis. A literary project that exists principally to serve such ends as these expires as something feasible when the analysis has subtracted from it its extra-literary aims and devices.

There is increased pluralism within psychoanalysis today, and the practice of psychoanalysis rests on many different theories and distinctly different epistemologic perspectives about the nature of the truth, the position of the observer-analyst in the process, and the phenomena to be observed. The relevance of developmental observation research to clinical psychoanalysis will vary with the epistemological perspective of the practitioner, and to be relevant the perspective of the researcher must 'match' that of the clinician. Additionally, its relevance is conditioned by what is considered 'empirical' data, i.e. whether the data are defined behaviourally or by empathic judgements of an observer. Three broad categories of psychoanalytic perspectives are discussed: empirical-natural science, hermeneutic-empirical, and hermeneutic-constructivist. A patient in analysis is described, with details of two sessions. Three imaginary consultants, each representing one of the major epistemological clinical perspectives, comment on the material to demonstrate the relationship among technique, epistemology, and the ways infants and developmental observation research may be relevant (or not relevant).

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre contains a paradox of character: Jane Eyre is an assertive successful woman, who marries, after every obstacle is overcome, the man she loves; she is also a traumatised, terrorised child, who later becomes deeply involved, to the point of losing herself, with a moral sadist. In the critical literature on Jane Eyre there is controversy concerning Brontë's aims in the characterisation of her fictional autobiographer. Did Brontë's artistic control of character slip and result in Jane Eyre's irreconciliable attributes? Did she mean to give us an assertive feminine heroine and instead reveal her own castration complex in the marriage to a maimed and near-blind man? The hypothesis of this paper is that the multiple functions of masochism--adaptive, defensive and gratifying--the multiple defence mechanisms at work in masochism--denial, introjection and projection--and the special layering of masochism at each developmental level--oral, anal, and phallic--are mirrored in Brontë's characterisation. The irreducible complexity of the clinical concept of masochism finds its match in Brontë's characterisation of Jane Eyre.

Depression and moral masochism are inseparable, and originate in a particular climate of lived experience in which one or both parents suffer from a masochistic-depressive disposition. Developmentally, there has been a deficit in the child's experience of shared pleasure, and of being a source of enjoyment to the parent. Instead, the child experiences himself or herself as a source of pain and feels responsible for the parent's dysphoric, anhedonic state. This is not simply a fantasy construction of the child, as parental reproachfulness is characteristically encountered. The child makes reparative efforts, but they generally do not succeed. Central psychological capacities are compromised under these conditions, particularly a sense of personal efficacy and of natural entitlement. The evolution of initiative, autonomy, and individuation are also significantly affected. The aggression, both conscious and unconscious, which is generated by these early conditions creates intrapsychic conflict which further inhibits the development of these essential psychological functions. Some therapeutic recommendations are proposed based on these considerations.

The characteristic of patheticness in the case of a young female victim of child abuse has been presented, underscoring the phallic quality of this trait and its root distinctiveness from the tragic character. Many patients, historical figures, and other individuals are prematurely judged as tragic when, in fact, we are reacting uncritically to the impact of their profound patheticness, at a point when, more often than not, such patheticness has not yet reached its lowest ebb, when it is still not too late to transform mute resignation to the neurosis of tragic fatalism into a more heroic deployment of destiny (Bollas, 1991, pp. 31-4). Phallic patheticness, in fact, represents a higher psychical achievement by virtue of its transient quality and its propensity to enable basic, if conflictual object-relationships and the recovery from psychic trauma. To be sure, many individuals with advanced personality structures have introjected into their personal value system a sense of the tragic, an identification with the tragic, or a special proclivity toward the tragic aspects of life, but this in and of itself does not render such individuals tragic, nor do they typically evoke in others the inner experience of maximum catastrophe or calamity. It is argued that the distinction between pathetic and tragic psychic structure can be clarified through carefully interpreted counter-transference.

This paper describes a very malignant type of self-destructiveness seen in a small group of patients. It is active in the way that they run their lives and it emerges in a deadly way in the transference. This type of self-destructiveness is, I suggest, in the nature of an addiction of a particular sado-masochistic type, which these patients feel unable to resist. It seems to be like a constant pull towards despair and near-death, so that the patient is fascinated and unconsciously excited by the whole process. Examples are given to show how such addictions dominate the way in which the patient communicates with the analyst and internally, with himself, and thus how they affect his thinking processes. It is clearly extremely difficult for such patients to move towards more real and object-related enjoyments, which would mean giving up the all-consuming addictive gratifications.

The sensual experiences, fantasies and enactments that occur in the course of normal development are seen as psychic organizers which contribute vitally to the structuralization of the representational world. In the sexual perversions which occur in structurally deficient, developmentally arrested individuals, this function of early psychosexual experiences has been retained and is regressively relied upon in order to restore or sustain the cohesion and stability of crumbling, fragmenting or disintegrating self and object representations. Analytic exploration of the details of perverse fantasies and acts, their origins and functions, reveals the particular ways in which they compensate for specific structural weaknesses in patients' representational worlds. Some clinical illustrations and therapeutic implications of these formulations are briefly presented.

The treatment of first and second generation patients, having been traumatized by social catastrophes (like German concentration camps), puts a heavy burden on the therapist. To overcome this, the therapist must clearly realize what goes on in himself (countertransference) to avoid unsuitable interpretations and acting out. This counts even more if the therapist himself has undergone social trauma. Two case studies are included, which illustrate how the author could further the analytic process. Especially with masochistic-regressive patients the analyst has to accept and use his temporary identification.

Relationships may be perserve without"normal" sexuality being replaced by deviant acts and fantasies. The link between perversion and genital sexuality can be loosened without the term becoming inapplicable. Moreover perversions manifest themselves in almost any idiosyncratic form, just like defences. Next to a seemingly not for perverse aim and object, split-off fantasies and acts exist, which form the condition for the "normal" genital sexual relationship. Such a fantasy may be the idea that one's partner has a secret homosexual adventure like in Proust's novel. It can be the need to be unfaithful, or the fantasy of having two lovers instead of one husband, as in the examples given. Perversions can be understood as regulators of self-esteem, and defence against (pre)oedipal conflict. Proust, an expert on perversion and the pre-oedipal, gives us insight into its development, and manifestations: in the mother-child relationship, in love life, in social life and as a sexual perversion in the strict sense of the term. We go into some detail regarding what he tells us about the sado-masochistic fantasies in a love relationship, where paradox seems to be another word for perversion. This is followed by three clinical examples of perverted relationships between partners, with safeguarding of genital aim and object. Perversion seems still more pervasive, more enigmatic and difficult to delineate than in Freud's time.

As I stated initially, the preceding report was presented in order to buttress the claim that the new psychology of the self is helpful in the clinical area, that it allows us to perceive meanings, or the significance of meanings, that were formerly not perceived by us, at least not consciously. This is not a theoretical presentation of the psychology of the self--the theoretical knowledge needed will have to be obtained elsewhere (see, in particular, Kohut, 1971, 1972, 1977 and Kohut & Wolf, 1978). In order to assist the reader I append a diagrammatic summary of the psychopathology of Mr Z as it was perceived by me in his two analyses. For the rest I hope that this case report will speak for itself.

In this paper, I attempted to illustrate the process of separation and growth in the third analysis of a Holocaust survivor's daughter. The first phase of analysis began by working through her externalization of the past by means of acting out. Her encounter with death allowed a re-activation and re-working of sadomasochistic fantasies, making her aware of an additional facet of the Holocaust, namely its defensive aspect. The working through of feelings of mourning and guilt facilitated differentiation from the burden of her father's past. The second part of the analysis dealt with furthering the process of growth by working through separation from her mother. Differentiation from primary objects' representations, which enabled her to marry and become a mother herself, was made possible through the analytic experience. An 'interminable' analysis thus came to an end.

Freud rested his final understanding of moral masochism (the masochistic character) upon the concept of the death-instinct. Those analysts who have been unable to accept this concept have continued to define and enrich the understanding of the masochistic character. Out of their work has emerged the picture of a character structured in three discernible layers: an upper one of "nobility in adversity": a middle one of hate toward the mother; and the deepest one of primary union with the mother to which a later return is made. An abbreviated account of an analysis is given to exemplify this structure. An understanding of the relation between the deepest layers is essential to a comprehension of the total structure. Out of a primary maternal union accompanied by experiences of omnipotence and grandiosity emerges an ambivalent relationship to the omnipotent mother characterized primarily by hate. The relationship to the mother is one of masochistic enthralment. The lost omnipotence is then recaptured by a union mystica (primary identification) with the hating and hated mother now internalized as an aggressive self-ideal in which phallic characteristics become prominent. The unio mystica may be momentary and orgasmic as in the masochistic perversion or more or less enduring and characterological as in the masochistic character to which it contributes traits of haughtiness and disdain.