ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with sadomasochism from the point of view of psychic content. The content aspects are the more familiar psychodynamic factors, the drives, object relations, fantasies, anxieties, defences, that create sadomasochism. In "Female Sexuality", Sigmund Freud speculated that beating fantasies in women might be linked to maternal prohibition of masturbation—beating the clitoris. People do learn that Diane's mother forbade masturbation; Diane sometimes treats the analyst as someone who imposes "the rules". Paula L. Ellman says that a central issue in Diane's analysis is "the problem of how pleasure can be realised while feeling like a denigrated disgusting hole." The analyst has to be able to disentangle pleasure in pain from feeling "denigrated" and "disgusting". The analyst could be in the position of the destructive parent and the destructive society. Ideally, treatment would include helping Diane to resolve her defensive shame about enjoyment of pain, and then see what happens.
