A Dream of the Marquis de Sade: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Narcissistic Trauma, Decompensation, and the Reconstitution of a Delusional Self

Bach, Sheldon; Schwartz, Lester

doi:10.1177/000306517202000302

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Losing the love of his father, his idealized object, Robert reconstructs a false self that is permitted everything, since he has suffered so grievous an injury (Freud 1916). His grandiose self is built around this anal core (Bach and Schwartz 1972), and his perverse tendencies are strengthened.…”

Section: P E R V E R S E R E L At I O N S H I P S a N D T H E I R F U N C T I O Nmentioning

confidence: 99%

Book Essay on A Fatal Attraction to Death

Kogan¹

2015

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

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I n this essay I want to examine the relationship between perversion and an attraction to death. The attraction to death was first dealt with by Freud (1920). Based on observations regarding certain analysands' returning over and over again to painful past experiences, the behavior of those who repeatedly undergo several calamities, and the dreadful preoccupations of war veterans, Freud suggested that there might be a selfdestructive, "daemonic force" (p. 35) at work in them. This force worked in opposition to the pleasure principle and was aligned with a fundamental attribute of mind that searched for reduction of all excitation to quiescence (the "Nirvana principle"). He concluded that "the aim of all life is death" (p. 38) and thus gave voice to his concept of "the death instinct."Freud (1920) considered sadism, which belongs to the death instinct, to point out the way to the libidinal component of the sexual instinct. Unlike him, Rosenfeld (1971), in his exploration of the destructive aspects of narcissism, stated that in cases when the aggressive instincts are linked to perversion, there is a pathological fusion of the instincts that does not lead to a lessening of their power. On the contrary, the erotization of the aggressive instincts greatly enhances power and violence. These processes seem to operate in their most virulent form in severe narcissistic conditions.To illustrate my theme, I will use a close reading of The Comfort of Strangers, an early work by the great contemporary novelist Ian McEwan. This novel, published in 1981, evokes in the reader a sense of tremendous anxiety over an impending catastrophe, by connoting a picture of the protagonists' morbid attraction to an abyss, or hole, that seems to be pulling them over its edge. Colin and Mary are attracted to a local couple as "iron to a magnet" (Fromm 1973), and they are finally trapped in a fatal 602448A PAXXX10.

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Section: P E R V E R S E R E L At I O N S H I P S a N D T H E I R F U N C T I O Nmentioning

confidence: 99%

Book Essay on A Fatal Attraction to Death

Kogan¹

2015

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

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“…He was the first psychoanalyst (Khan1965a) to suggest that perverse writers could in their writing do something similar to what they did in their perverse behavior. This intrigued a number of us (Bach and Schwartz 1972;Meyer 1967Meyer , 1972Coen 1982aCoen ,b, 1984Coen , 1985aCoen , 1994 to consider further what writers seek from imagined readers.…”

Section: O N F I R S T R E a D I N G K H A Nmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rereading Masud Khan Today: Have His Writings Fallen With Him?

Coen

2010

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

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O nce upon a time, in the 1970s and early 1980s, many of us thought of Masud Khan as the most interesting, helpful psychoanalytic writer on schizoid states and perversions, and even more broadly on the treatment of very difficult patients. Teaching perversion in the secondyear course on psychopathology at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, I especially wanted candidates to read articles by Khan (1962Khan ( , 1964Khan ( , 1965aKhan ( ,b, 1969) that seemed to me to best capture and evoke how it feels to work with perverse patients. I drew on Khan's ideas in my own writing. I have found them very helpful, and have admired Khan as a clear and evocative writer.Younger psychoanalysts may now know little about Masud Khan except for his notoriety, especially after the publication of three biographies (Cooper 1993;Willoughby 2005;Hopkins 2006). He comes across as unable to contain his narcissistic neediness, arrogantly misusing otherspatients, colleagues, wives, lovers, friends-for his own needs, destructive toward himself and others, violent, vulnerable, unpredictable, unreliable, untrustworthy. Charming and charismatic, worldly, smart, literate, and exotic, he quickly captivated the psychoanalytic world, only to crash and burn when he provoked and enraged the British psychoanalytic establishment with his boundary crossing and boundary violations with his patients, and with his alcoholism, extravagant storytelling and lying, and other outrageous behavior. Before his fall, he published three extraordinary books and many articles, served as editor of the International Psychoanalytical Library and as associate editor of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, edited and helped write a number of Donald Winnicott's papers, and in general had become a luminary in the psychoanalytic world. Afterward, his status as a training analyst and a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society and his membership in the International Psychoanalytical Association were revoked. Psychoanalytic colleagues

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“…In an interesting account (Bach and Schwartz, 1972) of one of Sade's dreams, an attempt was made to understand his cruel sexual fantasies. The account, although phrased in the language of "narcissism," also relies on an inevitable sequence from humiliation to triumph and back again.…”

Section: Sadism and The Marquis De Sadementioning

confidence: 99%

Freud and Modern Psychology

Lewis

1981

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A Dream of the Marquis de Sade: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Narcissistic Trauma, Decompensation, and the Reconstitution of a Delusional Self

Cited by 19 publications

References 4 publications

Book Essay on A Fatal Attraction to Death

Book Essay on A Fatal Attraction to Death

Rereading Masud Khan Today: Have His Writings Fallen With Him?

Freud and Modern Psychology

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