ABSTRACT
Louise Kaplan usefully describes a perversion as a mental or psychological strategy. The aim of the strategy is to deceive and to mislead. Specific expressions of perverse desire may change with the evolution of society. Stalking, for example, is regarded as a dangerous infringement of individual rights and could be categorised as a perversion. Perhaps there is only one underlying perversion, which expresses itself in a variety of behavioural outcomes. Anxiety is a bubbling undercurrent lapping at ego weaknesses and at other vulnerable structures in the troubled psyche. If perversion has taken over, the anxiety ceases to express itself through communicable neurotic symptoms that the psychotherapist might receive as the patient’s way of showing distress and asking for help. Perversion is a triumphant act. The man has displayed his masculine prowess and dominance but he has also exposed the opposite aspect of himself, the humiliated, helpless, persecuted child.
