Fearful symmetry: The development and treatment of sadomasochism.

Abstract

Although the authors do discuss sadomasochism (its development, diagnosis, and treatment), it is only one of many subjects addressed. This is a wideranging book that covers many issues. For example, it stresses the importance of understanding personality and pathology from a developmental point of view, an area that was dear to Anna Freud. In fact, the book is very much influenced by her thinking and it is also dedicated to her memory.The authors take up the concept of externalization in considerable depth. This is an area largely neglected by "adult" psychoanalysis. However, it has a profound impact on a child's psychological development. Externalization is an important mechanism used by parents in unloading their own pathology onto their children.In addition to these central topics, the authors provide readers with a "how-to" element in the book in that there is much supervision, of a good kind, in discussing how to treat sadomasochistic disorders, how to treat interminable cases, how to talk to toddlers, and how to terminate a case. Furthermore, it is also a case book, loaded with many illuminating case histories. A number of the chapters had previously been presented at meetings and have subsequently been revised for this book. In order to try to make the book cohesive, the authors have sometimes stretched their ideas to try to encompass the concept of sadomasochism as central to all the chapters.The authors found that beating wishes and beating games are universal, but that beating fantasies are not. Like Freud, they found that beating fantasies Correspondence concerning this review should be addressed to Samuel Weiss,

Cultural Interferences with Listening to Adolescents

“…Other psychoanalysts have been slow to integrate his findings, with the notable exception of Esman (1992). Our own work on the disjunction of normal and pathological development (Novick and Novick 1996) supports this position; we would now emphasize that to generalize from pathology to normality may not only be invalid but has interfered with our willingness and capability to help disturbed adolescents or to suggest ways in which normal development can be facilitated. By blurring the distinction between normality and pathology we lose the capacity to detect signs of interference with development, since early warning signs are often dismissed as within the range of normal adolescent turmoil.…”

“…The interference came from the analyst's culture-bound, theoretically reinforced assumptions that external physical separation is a measure of successful development. When the supervisor brought in the knowledge that physical separation is not the relevant criterion in other Western cultures, both supervisor and analyst were able to see the extent to which the patient had split off and thus avoided grappling with crucial adolescent tasks, such as relinquishing her own omnipotent fantasies and integrating realistic representations of herself, her family, and her analyst (Novick and Novick 1996). As these issues were addressed, the extent of the patient's and the family's conflicts around these issues became apparent in the intensity of their reactions.…”

Destructive Women and the Men Who Can't Leave Them: Pathological Dependence or Pathological Omnipotence?

“…The wife needs him as a person who feels the warmth, the love and caring, as she is fearful of those aspects in herself. Paradoxically, the relationship provides safety from recognizing their fearful symmetry ( Novick and Novick, 1996 ).…”

“…The aim of helping a couple identify each of their contributions to the strife that is destroying their marriage has undoubtedly been successful in helping many couples stick with it and improve their functioning as a couple, thereby avoiding the impact of divorce on everyone party to a divorce: children, friends and relatives. This approach can also be a powerful correction to the human tendency to fi x the blame on one person in the interaction, not to mention that it refl ects psychoanalytic understanding of the dynamic nature of the dyadic relationship ( Novick and Novick, 1996 ;Horney, 1950 ).…”

From “It's Not Me” to “It Was Me, After All”: A Case Presentation of a Patient Diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder

“…A new therapeutic object relationship was emerging and being internalized. While it was true that a new object relation was developing, there was a good deal of additional work to do on the internalization of the father-motherchild connection, which possessed destructive and sadomasochistic (Novick & Novick, 1996) elements.…”