“JSM: Do you take notes of the sessions you think are important? DM: Oh no, I take notes on every session. JSM: On every session of every patient? DM: On every session of every patient. JSM: Seeing fourteen patients a day …”

The meaning of masochism in psychic reality is again described to be defeatingly complex. It is seen here as “a powerful defence against the terrible possessive jealousy of the space inside the mother.” As said before, its ultimately meaning is believed to be “the killing of babies inside the mother.” Neither of these qualities, however, accounts for the way the sadistic side inherent in masochism seems to operate with the masochistic side of masochism. The connections between these combined parts of perversion is in itself thought to be what masochism proper ultimately consists of. This complex understanding of masochism is shown at work in the clinical material presented below.

The chapter also shows how egocentricity may be degraded into sadomasochism.

An intense counter-transferential response to the analysand’ s egocentricity took the form of a panic attack. This is described and discussed in this chapter.