Essential Papers on Masochism

by Margaret Ann Fitzpatrick Hanly

The contested psychoanalytic concept of masochism has served to open up pathways into less-explored regions of the human mind and behavior. Here, rituals of pain and sexual abusiveness prevail, and sometimes gruesome details of unconscious fantasies are constructed out of psychological pain, desperate need, and sexually excited, self- destructive violence.

In this significant addition to the "Essential Papers in Psychoanalysis" series, Margaret Ann Fitzpatrick Hanly presents an anthology of the most outstanding writings in the psychoanalytic study of masochism. In bringing these essays together, Dr. Fitzpatrick Hanly expertly combines classic and contemporary theories by the most respected scholars in the field to create a varied and integrated volume.

This collection features papers by S. Nacht, R. Loewenstein, Victor Smirnoff, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Laplanche, Robert Bak, Leonard Shengold, K. Novick, J. Novick, S. Coen, Margaret Brenman, Esther Menaker, S. Lorand, M. Balint, Bernhard Berliner, Charles Brenner, Helene Deutsch, Annie Reich, Marie Bonaparte, Jessica Benjamin, S.L. Olinick, Arnold Modell, Betty Joseph, and Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel.

Genres: Psychology, BDSM

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stanley J. Coen, "The Excitement of Sadomasochism"

It is exciting to feel able to induce intense affective response in another person, to overcome the other's barriers, to feel in control and dominant, able to make the other feel bad, guilty, weak, inferior, defective. It is exciting to hold another person in the palm of one's hand, to push another to the point of losing control, attacking, and leaving, and then to be reassured that this loss will not occur. Others can be simultaneously gotten rid of and held onto. When one is terrified of separateness and destructiveness, it is very reassuring, indeed, to feel able to combine getting rid of and holding on. It is not my intention here to attempt a comprehensive review of the literature on masochism. What I am after, instead, is focusing on why masochistic object relations are held onto so tenaciously. Parkin's (1980) view of masochistic enthrallment is relevant as the attempt to share in and borrow the mother's power and fury. I prefer, however, to emphasize the masochist's willingness to surrender to the hostile (critical) parental view of him in order to feel the illusion of magical protection, caring, and specialness under the domination of the powerful (destructive) parent. Surrender protects both child and parent from the dangers of the hatred and destructiveness in both of them and makes possible some relationship between them. The child (patient) accepts his role as the worthless, defective, shitty one in submission to the hostile, rejecting parent as the good, idealized one. This becomes a kind of "seduction of the aggressor" (Loewenstein ,1957). It is seductive, indeed, to offer the other the grandiose prospect of doing whatever he pleases with you. The child (patient) can then extract some caring from the parent, protect the parent from his guilt at hating/rejecting the child, and enhance his own worthiness through his suffering. He plays at the illusion that since he is the bad one, when he finally becomes good, the parent will love him. To face the fact of the parent's inability or deficiency in loving and the parent's hatred and destructiveness is too barren a prospect for the child. To face one's own rage and destructiveness is too frightening. The masochist seeks mastery and control and associated narcissistic enhancement through the provocation and exaggeration of suffering. The willingness to continue to view oneself through the hateful and distorted eyes of a rejecting parent, because of all of these defensive and compensatory gains, can be strong, indeed. The wish to surrender, to hate oneself, to feel depressed, shitty, worthless, incapable, crippled is in these terms, an appeal to a parent for love, caring, and protection, especially from the rage and destructiveness in the patient and in the parent.

Underneath the layer of game playing in sadomasochistic object relations is a more serious destructiveness -- destroying another's integrity, self-respect, autonomy, and free choice. This point is where it becomes frightening to face the parent's destructiveness in wanting to cripple oneself as well as one's own destructive hatred of the parent. If one feels terrified of separateness and of one's destructiveness and continues to crave parental loving, it becomes impossible to integrate one's hatred and destructiveness and to let go of the pathological relationship with the destructive parent. Sadomasochism's combined destroying/getting rid of and holding onto avoids this more mature integration. Instead of facing what has been wrong, the patient becomes excited in repeating what a parent (mother) did with one. Indeed, the excited, erotized repetition serves to ward off the horrors of destructiveness, mother's and one's own. Erotization tames destructiveness; one can pretend that it is a kind of loving relatedness, an exciting game sought by both participants. Playing this game is very different than acknowledging that one person hates, envies, and begrudges another his own life and his own separateness and autonomy and wants to destroy them. Dangers of fusion through passive masochistic surrender are defended against by the illusion of sadistic omnipotent control, the ability to render another helpless. That is, the masochist is hardly just a passive victim. Under that pose are his hungry destructiveness, his wish to control, dominate, rob, and despoil the other. Submission to a stronger object serves to protect the masochist from fears of his own destructive wishes and affects.