Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Reflecting on a Set of Personal and Political Criteria 1 Pt. 1 Expanding the Scope of Sadomasochism Ch. 1 Exploring Sadomasochism in the American Context 15 Ch. 2 Defining a Basic Dynamic: Parodoxes[sic] at the Heart of Sadomasochism 43 Ch. 3 Combining the Insights of Existentialism and Psychoanalysis: Why Sadomasochism? 69 Pt. 2 Sadomasochism in Its Social Settings Ch. 4 Employing Chains of Command: Sadomasochism and the Workplace 93 Ch. 5 Engendering Sadomasochism: Dominance, Subordination, and the Contaminated World of Patriarchy 125 Ch. 6 Creating Enemies in Everyday Life: Following the Example of Others 155 Ch. 7 A Theoretical Finale 187 Epilogue 215 Notes 223 Index 231

Why do men and women lock themselves in painful intimacies, continue to work for tyrannical bosses, and put up with people who humiliate them? Exploring the self-inflicted suffering of everyday life, this book sheds light on a widespread psychological phenomenon of our time--and points the way to breaking that pattern of unhappiness.

This book examines the forces of sadomasochism in the clinical domain where transference and countertransference reside. Psychoanalysts write in depth about cases where sadomasochism is present for both analysand and analyst. Four cases present the unfolding analytic exchange where life and death forces collide. Each case is accompanied by three discussions illuminating the complex phenomena that often include lifelong perversions and painful narcissistic difficulties. Through the case presentations and discussions, psychoanalytic therapists will find maps for guiding their own work with sadomasochistic processes. Treatments where sadomasochism is prominent abound with dramas containing control and denigration, domination, and submission. Often there is a history of over stimulation and under stimulation from infancy and childhood influencing the formation of object relations and unconscious fantasy. Since Freud first introduced the concepts of component instincts and psychosexual development, psychoanalysts have been exploring sadomasochism in its various forms. The belief that togetherness involves tormenting pain creates a sense of life and death struggle that is imbued with powerful instinctual gratification. Unconscious sexualized scenes of both dyadic and triadic forms carry humiliation and conquest.

Explains the subtle but pervasive aspects of sadomasochism that affect everyday relationships across our lives, detailing when the power and control dynamics become neurotic and describing actions that can be taken to better individuals and improve society. For most people, a whip-wielding, leather-clad sexual subculture comes to mind when they hear the phrase "sadomasochism." But as psychiatrist Martin Kantor explains in this book, sadomasochism is generally about power, control, dominance, and submission, dynamics that are subtle and pervasive in all of our lives, from home life to work life to social interactions including political arenas. The bottom line: sadomasochism is about the giving or receiving pleasure from the infliction or reception of pain or humiliation and both pain and pleasure can be purely emotional, no sexual or physical context necessary. Kantor deconstructs sadomasochism to show us how it affects each of us, consciously or not. He explains the "life phases" of sadomasochism, the role early trauma plays in this self-defeating action when it reaches a neurotic level, and the damage it does to individuals, loved ones, and society. This ground-breaking book will appeal to psychology students and researchers, as well as general readers with an interest in psychology.

Sadomasochism is explored from three distinct vantage points in this volume. First, there is an extensive critical overview of the etiology of the clinical syndrome that singles out specific parent-child interactions responsible for its causation. Second, the author presents a sociological perspective tracing the sadomasochistic elements existing in all basic interactions between men and women and argues compellingly that sexism is ultimately an expression of a sadomasochistic arrangement between the sexes. Finally a detailed and specific treatment plan is offered. Richly illustrated with four case histories, this plan integrates the developmental phases of normal infancy with specific phases of the therapeutic process.

In this eye-opening book Thomas Moore, the author of the national bestsellers Care of the Soul and Soul Mates, turns to the dark side of love: its cruelties, perversions, and appalling tortures. Bravely and with brilliant insights, Moore re-imagines the repulsive fictions of the Marquis de Sade to learn what they can teach about the horrors hidden deep inside the human soul, revealing unsuspected poetic and imaginative powers within violence and sexual victimization. The book also shows the sadomasochism that lies unseen in many aspects of everyday life. With a foreword by Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig and a new afterword by the author.