ABSTRACT
There are different contexts in which the paedophilic act can mature and take root, as well as different mental structures and pathological pictures which can lead to paedophilia. A first major distinction can be made between a neurotic and a psychotic picture. Bouchet-Kervella (1996) also distinguishes between forms of paedophilic behaviour that belong to neurosis, psychosis, and sexual perversion. In 'Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality' (1905) Freud writes about paedophilia more as an occasional act than an actual perversion. In the 'Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis' Freud wrote: 'You must not suppose, however, that sexual abuse of a child by its nearest male relatives belongs entirely to the realm of fantasy. Most analysts will have treated cases in which such events were real and could be unimpeachably established; but even so they related to the later years of childhood and had been transposed into earlier times'.
