The Clinical Problem Of Masochism

The Clinical Problem of Masochism, edited by Deanna Holtzman, PhD, and Nancy Kulish, PhD, is comprised of contributions from prominent experts on psychoanalytic and psychodynamic understandings of masochism. This volume offers therapists of all theoretical persuasions ideas on how to think about and help individuals suffering from masochistic difficulties.

Explains the subtle but pervasive aspects of sadomasochism that affect everyday relationships across our lives, detailing when the power and control dynamics become neurotic and describing actions that can be taken to better individuals and improve society. For most people, a whip-wielding, leather-clad sexual subculture comes to mind when they hear the phrase "sadomasochism." But as psychiatrist Martin Kantor explains in this book, sadomasochism is generally about power, control, dominance, and submission, dynamics that are subtle and pervasive in all of our lives, from home life to work life to social interactions including political arenas. The bottom line: sadomasochism is about the giving or receiving pleasure from the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation and both pain and pleasure can be purely emotional, no sexual or physical context necessary. Kantor deconstructs sadomasochism to show us how it affects each of us, consciously or not. He explains the "life phases" of sadomasochism, the role early trauma plays in this self-defeating action when it reaches a neurotic level, and the damage it does to individuals, loved ones, and society. This ground-breaking book will appeal to psychology students and researchers, as well as general readers with an interest in psychology.

Delineates a point of view about masochism through clinical narrative. Chapters cover patients diagnosed as neurotic, character disordered, borderline, narcissistic and schizophrenic. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Sexualities: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives presents a broad selection of contemporary psychoanalytic thinking on sexuality from a wide range of psychoanalytic traditions. Sexuality remains at the heart of much psychoanalytic theory and practice but it is a complex and controversial subject. Edited by Alessandra Lemma and Paul E. Lynch, this volume includes a range of international contributions that examine contemporary issues and trace common themes needed to understand any sexuality, including the basics of sexuality, and the myriad ways in which sexuality is lived. The clinical examples provided here demonstrate contemporary psychoanalytic techniques that uncover meanings that are both fresh and enlightening, and address heterosexuality, homosexuality, gender, and perversion from a psychoanalytic perspective. Divided into four parts, the book includes the following: Historical context Foundational concepts: Contemporary elaborations Homosexuality Perversion revisited Throughout Sexualities: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives the reader will find psychoanalytic wisdom that is transferrable to work with patients of all sexualities, and will see that the essentials of sexuality may be more similar than they are different for homo- and hetero-sexuality. Psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, as well as academics interested in the subjects of psychoanalysis, gender, sexuality, or homosexuality will find this book an invaluable resource. Alessandra Lemma, PhD is Director of the Psychological Therapies Development Unit at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. She is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society and Visiting Professor in the Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London. She is a Consultant Adult Psychotherapist at the Portman Clinic where she specializes in working with transsexuals. She has published extensively on psychoanalysis, the body and trauma. Paul E. Lynch, MD is on the faculty of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, and the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance. He teaches about psychoanalysis, gender, and sexuality, and has been a popular speaker on issues of homosexuality and psychoanalysis. He is also a Clinical Instructor of Psychiatry at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics covers topics in three major categories in two volumes of this series: 1. Approaches to Specific Conditions; 2. Special Features in Working with Children; 3. Research Presented for the Clinician. Specific conditions covered are: Anxiety, Trauma, Depression, Eating Disorders, Incipient Borderline Personality Disorders, and the Medically Ill Youth. Special Features include the various therapies in Psychodynamic psychotherapy: Play Techniques, Use of Boardgames, Perspectives on Psychotropic Medications for Children, Parent Work, Family Therapy, and Dyadic Therapies. Research for Clinicians includes Neuroscience, Evidence Base, and Developmental Perspectives.

Radical alternatives to consent and trauma Contemporary discourse on sex and sexuality is fixated on consent as a means of mitigating danger and avoiding forms of sexual trauma. Sexuality Beyond Consent dares us to step into a different territory, where we do not guard the self but risk experience. Avgi Saketopoulou maintains that we are overly focused on healing trauma and need to reroute our attention to what subjects do with their trauma, in the process taking up a series of provocative questions: Why is sexuality beyond consent worth risking, and how does risk become a way of soliciting the future? Why might surrendering to the fact that your pain is not going away enable you to do things with pain? In what ways are race and racism shot through with the erotic? How can something proximal to violation become a site of flourishing? Central to the transformational possibilities of trauma is a queer form of consent, limit consent, that is not about maintaining control but risks sexuality beyond consent. Moving between clinical and cultural case studies, Saketopoulou takes up theatrical and cinematic works such as Slave Play and The Night Porter, to show us how the force of the erotic surges through the aesthetic domain. Grounding its arguments in the psychoanalytic theory of Jean Laplanche in conversation with queer of color critique, performance studies, and philosophy, Sexuality Beyond Consent proposes that enduring the rousing of the strange in ourselves, not in order to master trauma but to rub up against it, may open us up to encounters with opacity and unique forms of care.

Are dominance and submission inevitable in human relationships? Believing that sadomasochism is becoming an ever more obtrusive phenomenon in developed countries, the author surveyed 48 self-declared sadomasochists (43 male, 5 female) and 35 controls (26 male, 9 female) in an effort to elicit information on early family relationships, morale, and sexual behavior and fantasy; she also looks at the philosophy of masochism and its damaging effects.

"Personality is not about what disorders you have but about who you are. It refers to a person's characteristic patterns of thought, feeling, behavior, motivation, defense, interpersonal functioning, and ways of experiencing self and others. All people have personalities and personality styles. While there are as many personalities as people, clinical knowledge accrued over generations has given rise to a taxonomy of familiar personality styles or types. Most people, whether healthy or troubled, fit somewhere in the taxonomy. Empirical research over the past two decades has confirmed the major personality types and their core features.1-5 Most clinical theorists do not view the personality types as inherently disordered. They are generally discussed in the clinical literature as personality types, styles, or syndromes-not "disorders." Each exists on a continuum of functioning from healthy to severely disturbed. The term "disorder" is best regarded as a linguistic convenience for clinicians, denoting a degree of extremity or rigidity that causes significant dysfunction, limitation, or suffering. One can have, for example, a narcissistic personality style without having narcissistic personality disorder. The same personality dynamics give rise to both strengths and weaknesses. A person with a healthy narcissistic personality style has the confidence to dream big dreams and pursue them; they can be visionaries, innovators, and founders. A person with a healthy obsessive-compulsive style excels in areas requiring precise, analytic thinking; they may be successful engineers, scientists, or academics. A person with a healthy paranoid style looks beneath the surface and sees what others miss; they may be investigative journalists or brilliant medical diagnosticians. Our best and worst qualities are often cut from the same psychological cloth"--