ABSTRACT
The epigenetic layering of sadomasochism and its multiple functions emerge within the therapeutic relationship and must be dealt with in that context. Analysts are still challenged and fascinated by the complexity and counter-intuitiveness of sadomasochism. In model sadomasochism springs first from a painful mother-infant interaction, vividly borne out in Diane's Dowling transference. In reading about Diane people are struck by her great strengths, her intellectual power, her tenacity and persistence, her capacity for hard work and courage in the face of neglect, discouragement, and pain. The centrality of Diane's perfectionism in her mental economy indicates that her frantic need to be the absolute best rests on an impossible mission to repair her mother. From the start Diane creates a transference relationship of doubt, mistrust, denigration, and assumption that the analyst is incompetent. Diane's experience and expressions of psychic and physical pain are central to her self-representation.
