Fearful Symmetry: The Development and Treatment of Sadomasochism

by Novick, Jack

• ISBN13: 9781568216522
• ISBN10: 1568216521
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-12-01
• Publisher: JASON ARONSON INC

Summary

Using data from infant observation, and child, adolescent, and adult analyses, the Novicks explicate a multidimensional, developmental theory of sadomasochism that has been recognized as a major innovation. According to the Novicks, each phase of development contributes to the clinical manifestations of sadomasochism. Painful experiences in infancy are transformed into a mode of attachment, then into an embraced marker of specialness and unlimited destructive power, then into a conviction of equality with oedipal parents, and, finally, into an omnipotent capacity to gratify infantile wishes through the coercion of others. By school age, these children have established a magic omnipotent system of thought which undermines alternate means of competent interactions with reality. In adolescence and adulthood it becomes increasingly hard for them to deny, avoid, or distort reality without resorting to escalating self-destructive behaviors. Sadomasochistic phenomena are the source of severe resistances and counterreactions in all phases of therapy. This book helps clinicians recognize and overcome these blocks to treatment progress and success. Here can be found an introduction to the Novicks' reformulation of the therapeutic alliance, and their distinctive contributions to the transformations of memory and the termination of treatment.

Table of Contents

Dedication	vii	(2)
Acknowledgments	ix	(2)
Introduction	xi
PART I: DEVELOPMENT	3	(94)
1 Beating Fantasies in Children	3	(11)
2 The Essence of Masochism	14	(34)
3 The Masochism and the Delusion of Omnipotence from a Developmental Perspective	48	(22)
4 Postoedipal Transformations: Latency, Adolescence, and Pathogenesis	70	(27)
PART II: MECHANISMS	97	(76)
5 Projection and Externalization	97	(30)
6 Varieties of Transference in the Analysis of an Adolescent	127	(20)
7 Externalization as a Pathological Form of Relating: The Dynamic Underpinnings of Abuse	147	(26)
PART III: CLINICAL MANIFESTATIONS	173	(80)
8 Attempted Suicide in Adolescence: The Suicide Sequence	173	(30)
9 A "Boo Warning": Ego Disruption in an Abused Little Girl	203	(24)
10 "I Hate You for Saving My Life": Borrowed Trauma in the Analysis of a Young Adult	227	(26)
PART IV: TECHNICAL INTERVENTION	253	(128)
11 Talking with Toddlers	253	(12)
12 Negative Therapeutic Motivation and Negative Therapeutic Alliance	265	(22)
13 Deciding on Termination: The Relevance of Child and Adolescent Analytic Experience to Work with Adults	287	(23)
14 Termination: A Case Report of the End Phase of an "Interminable" Analysis	310	(43)
15 Sadomasochism and the Therapeutic Alliance: Implications for Clinical Technique	353	(28)
References	381	(22)
Credits	403	(4)
Index	407