ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the dynamics of working with perversions. In as far as the transference is an embodiment of the patient’s sexual experience, the transference thus takes on the forms and psychic processes of the perversion. The chapter demonstrates that the patient’s attempt to bring the therapist into his or her perversion will almost inevitably result in a countertransference perversion. Perversion is a product of anxiety, and perverse sexual behaviour is sprinkled with the remains, ruins and indicators of the past history of sexual development, especially in the dynamics of one’s family. The creative possibilities of the therapeutic encounter had been overtly attacked by the patient’s sadistic fantasy of violent assault, the primal scene becoming one of sadistic rape rather than love-making. A more overtly aggressive-sadistic fantasy may be more common amongst male therapists. The principal mechanism is regression to the anal-sadistic phase which erodes awareness of differences.
