ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author provides a description of a long and successful psychoanalysis with Dr. Reichbart's patient. Dr. Reichbart explains that he feels that the sadomasochism is a defence against the patient's anxiety. The anxiety may stem from the identity confusion, which leads to castration panic at a time when the patient is experiencing his own hormonal changes and upsurges of sexual tension. The author focuses on the sadomasochistic coloration of patient's thinking and object relations through attention to the transference, countertransference, and the process of the analysis. The drumbeat of this patient's sadomasochistic fantasy life must have been very absorbing, picturing violent, sexualised relations with his inner objects and making it difficult for him to attend to the outer world of reality. In describing the treatment, Dr. Reichbart emphasises the slow emergence of both historical recollections and fantasy life, bringing to mind both the natural flow of an analysis and also the possibility of withholding by the patient.
