ABSTRACT
Fqrdham observes that Jungian analysts have neglected the perversions. He also suggests that Jungian interest in imagination and phantasy can go on in an excessively disembodied way. For these reasons, Fordham’s approach to perversion makes use of terms and concepts of his own and those of psychoanalytic writers (Freud, Klein, Bion and Meltzer).
This enables Fordham to point out parallels between Bion’s theory of beta elements, alpha elements, and alpha function and Jung’s idea of the archetype, with its instinctual and spiritual poles. The androgyne, itself an archetypal image, acts as an organizer for polymorphous and physical sexual activities. In his use of the image of the androgyne, Fordham is emphasizing the part played in internal life by images of which the individual may not be aware.
276Fordham makes a further suggestion about why it is that perverse mental process leads or does not lead to actual perversion: could this have something to do with psychological type? He concludes that, though interesting, this is not sufficient as an explanation.
A.S.
