Psychopathology of Perversion: A Contemporary Clinical Reflection on Violence1

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the psychopathology of perversion by evaluating the complex relationship between violence and psychopathology, and to introduce different metapsychological frameworks within which this mode of psychic functioning along with its concomitant personality organizations/adjustments may become clinically meaningful. The purpose is to contribute to the understanding of the psychic dynamics involved in what we call perversion at the service of the psychotherapeutic work. The author proposes a dual focus on the complex relation between act and psychopathology, and on the manner in which psychological judicial expertise encounters the question of perversion both clinically and politically. The author then develops a number of theoretical perspectives that allow for refining the psychodynamic understanding of different configurations of the psychopathology of perversion by locating it, from a structural perspective, between borderline and psychosis. He then attempts to show how clinical work with perversion is to be tested with adults and adolescents in the context of medical and legal practice.