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The Concept of Perversion in Psychoanalysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2018

R. H. Etchegoyen*
Affiliation:
International Psychoanalytical Association, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Extract

Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905) made possible the understanding of the concept of perversion as a form of psychic conflict resulting from both constitutional and acquired factors. He stated (as against earlier views) that sexual deviations could not be separated from ‘normal’ sexual behaviour, on the grounds that both sprang from a common source (infantile sexuality). In the first essay, Freud classified sexual deviations into two groups, depending on whether the aim (e.g. sadism and masochism) or the object of the instinct (e.g. homosexuality and paedophilia) were displaced. In the second essay he characterised infantile sexuality as a collection of partial instincts and erotogenic zones, on which both the source and the object of the instinct converged. He also stated that infantile sexuality was auto-erotic, implying that the sexual object was contingent.

Type
III. Psychosocial Aspects
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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