In today's text we will look at what is masochistic, its concept, and how it works in and out of sex life in the view of Freud, Reich and Psychoanalysis.

According to psychoanalysis, an individual can be classified into one of three personality types: neurosis, psychosis, and perversion. In other words, each is within a certain structure.

What is masochistic according to experts?

At first, the masochist is the one who suffers from an abnormality of sexuality, in which it leads the individual to seek sexual pleasure by feeling pain, causing other people cause them pain In other words, sexual pleasure is only felt together with pain itself.

For this reason, this text brings a case study of a masochistic person, in which the author, Wilhelm Reich, wants to show that the process of transference between the analyst and the patient is possible. The author is based on studies by Jacques Lacan, because Freud believed that psychoanalysis was not indicated in cases of psychosis. After all, for Freud, the bond of transferential love with the analyst was not established, thewhich is essential for this analysis.

The other psychoanalyst, on the other hand, Reich begins his studies with the following question: "If the masochist neither seeks displeasure nor feels it as a pleasure, why does he feel compelled to be tormented?" In this way, the author discovered with his work the fantasy that is at the base of this perverse behavior, which we will define next:

The difficulty to feel pleasure through one's own initiative

The masochist imagines he is being tormented because he wants "break off" Thus, masochistic laments are the expression of a torturous, insoluble inner tension. They are frank or disguised cries of despair and pleas for release from this instinctive tension.

Because of this anguish and pleasure, the masochist's ability to experience satisfaction through his or her own initiative and activity is blocked. Thus, the masochistic person awaits the orgasmic solution, which he or she greatly fears, as a release from outside and provided by someone else.

But the desire to break through can come into balance. The self-deprecation of the masochistic character is now in a hitherto unknown light. The exaltation itself is, so to speak, a biopsychic construction A fantastic expansion of the psychic mechanism.

The repression of the natural pleasure function

In this study, the author further discovered that behind this feeling of pain is the perception of bioelectric charges. The opposite of this is self-deprecation, caused by the fear of expanding oneself to the point of breaking through. The vain ambition and the inhibited quest for greatness rooted in anguish are the forces behind masochistic self-deprecation.

In this excerpt, the author demonstrates this:

"Masochism is the prototype of a secondary impulse, and demonstrates by force the result of the repression of the natural pleasure function. Masochists exhibit a special form of orgasm distress [...] The masochist remains in pre-genital stimulation. [...] Thus, the masochist remains trapped in a vicious circle of the worst kind.

"The more you want to get rid of the tension, the deeper you sink into it. At the moment when orgasm should occur, the masochistic fantasies become much more intense. It is often only at that point that they become conscious," Reich concludes.

Masochistic and sexual tension

Reich further records several important observations: "Masochism does not correspond to a biological instinct. It is the result of a disruption in the ability to satisfy of a person, and a continually frustrated attempt to correct that disturbance. It is a result and not a cause of neurosis."

Therefore, masochism is the expression of a sexual tension that cannot be relieved. Its immediate source is the anguish of pleasure or the fear of orgasmic discharge. What characterizes it is the search to achieve what it fears most: the pleasurable release of tension, experienced and feared as a breakdown or an explosion.

Reich was able to understand the masochistic mechanism in the field of biology. For him human pleasure distress became understandable as an essential change in the physiological function of pleasure. "Suffering and enduring suffering are results of the loss of orgasmic capacity for pleasure" .

Masochism and religion

The author further draws a comparison with religion. Here religious ecstasy is configured precisely according to the masochistic mechanism. Liberation from inner sin, or inner sexual tension, cannot be achieved by oneself - it must come from God, the all-powerful figure.

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Such a liberation is desired with biological energy. At the same time, it is seen as a "sin". Thus, it cannot be accomplished through the subject's own will. Someone else has to accomplish it, either in the form of punishment, forgiveness, redemption, etc.

The three basic excitations of the body

Reich concludes his research by formulating that the energy of the sex life may lie in chronic muscular tensions and that to dissolve a muscular tension, one of the three basic excitations of the body would break, i.e:

• anguish;
• hate; or
• sexual arousal.

Muscular attitudes and character attitudes have the same function in the psychic mechanism: can replace each other and can influence each other That is, they cannot be separated.

If a character inhibition is not similar to a psychic influence, she resorts to the somatic attitude that corresponds to it. But, on the contrary, if she finds it difficult to reach a disturbing somatic attitude, she works with its expression in the patient's character and succeeds in freeing it.

Masochism Treatment

According to Reich, the masochistic person has to break with the old ideas about the mind-body connection if you want to understand these phenomena.

They were not the "results", the "causes" or the "accompanying manifestations" of "psychic processes"; they were just the phenomena themselves, in the somatic field. But, for the author, these symptoms could not only be the mechanical motions of fluids .

He believed that, besides the bloodstream, there must be something else. Something that depending on its biological function would cause anguish, anger or pleasure In this process, the bloodstream is only an essential medium. Moreover, perhaps this unknown "something" does not occur when the movement of body fluids is impeded.

Consequence of Masochism

In short, a masochist is a person who only achieves pleasure by submitting to pain during sexual intercourse Moreover, even when not having sex, a masochist's imagination will also have a fixed idea of feeling pain.

In a broad sense, we can say that a person who likes to suffer or likes to take on the suffering of another person has masochistic traits This can be the result of a disconnection with oneself, with one's ego, and with one's most legitimate desires. This person assumes that he doesn't deserve to live his own dreams, and so puts himself at the service of someone else.

Conclusion: what is masochistic, meaning of masochism

After all the discussions we realize that there are several ways out that psychotics and perverts construct in their treatment and also outside of it.

Finally, it is up to the psychoanalyst, physician, or other mental health professional to discover the styles of responses given by the individual affected by the masochism That is, to bet on what builds the subject in the bond with the world.

During the Training Course in Clinical Psychoanalysis 100% on-line the concept of Masochism as well as other sexual paraphilias or disorders, such as sadism, exhibitionism, fetishism, and frotteurism, among others.

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This is an article by Valéria Ormastroni, exclusively for the Psychoanalysis Clinic blog, on the theme Masochism and the characteristics of a Masochistic person, according to Psychoanalysis.