There is a tremendous loss of reality in perversion, an infantile solution for the wounded narc, employing disregard for their feeling of smallness and inadequacy. This template can lead to losing the love of truth and replacing it with a sham. The child’s ego is under the sway of a robust instinctual demand which is accustomed to satisfaction, who is suddenly frightened by an experience which teaches that the continuation of desire will result in intolerable danger and pain. The child must now decide either to recognise the real threat, give in to it and renounce instinctual satisfaction, or to disavow reality and make them believe there is no reason to fear, thereby regaining the satisfaction—conflict between the instinct and the prohibition by reality. The child replies to conflict with two contradictory reactions, both valid and effective.
- He rejects reality and refuses to accept any prohibition.
- Recognises the danger of reality and takes over the fear of danger as a pathological symptom and tries to divest in the fear.
The instinct is allowed to retain its satisfaction, and proper respect is paid to reality. Success at the price of a rift in the ego, which never heals, and the splitting of the ego. A fetish is a means of eluding the fatal character of the Oedipus complex. The pervert succeeded in escaping human destiny since it preserves his genitalia and their sexual function ( castration anxiety foreclosed). During the narcissistic stage, the ego furnishes itself with its ideal, which should give way to object relations. Narcissistic state is fantasised as identical to the fusion between infancy and mother, the primal fantasy. An unconscious wish to return to the mother’s womb, to retrieve lost narcissistic unity, until the child cathects the father’s image with his ego ideal. The child is incapable of giving up the blissful state he once enjoyed and is not willing to forego this narcissistic perfection of childhood. He seeks to recover this in the form of the ego ideal. The projection of child infantile narcissism onto parents results in the ego ideal, a step towards the conquest of reality and object love.
Frustrations and gratifications, when applied correctly, encourage the child to forgo some satisfaction and acquire specific skills. Each phase of development must bring enough gratification with it to counteract any desire to turn back, and frustration enough to urge him towards then halt his evolution. The mother can lead the child’s ego ideal astray, through an insufficiency of narcissistic and object gratification, to smothering or excess satisfaction. The mother’s seduction may destroy the child’s wish to be big and grow up and prevent him from experiencing admiration from his father. The mother has pushed the child into a trap, making him belive his infantile sexuality and prebuscnet penis, he is the perfect partner for her, and does not have to envy his father. The child’s ego ideal remains attached to the pregenital mode instead of cathecting to the genital father. The pervert lives in the illusion that his pregenital sexuality is equivalent or superior to genitality, where the father and his attributes are disavowed and held in contempt. he projects his penis in a fantasy of gential fulfillment containing the promise of a return to the original state of bliss and nostalgic wish for primary narcissism. Takes the short path, merges with mother in here and now, without need to grow up and evolve.
A real castration threat applied to the very seat of excitation
Group Psychology
The superego results from the internalisation of the barrier against incest, a process ruled by the fear of castration. The Superego breaks the symbiotic union between mother and child and emerges as a latent psychic apparatus. The ego ideal, the positive injunction, originates from the heir of narcissism and the negative one, the superego, is the heir of the Oedipal complex. Many adults do not reach a real moral conscience, with no real feelings of guilt, but only social anxiety. Only prevented from doing evil by fear of being discovered, not because it is wrong. In obedience to the new authority, he puts his former conscience out of action, to surrender to the attraction of increased pleasure from the removal of inhibitions. He can overcome the repression of his unconscious, instinctual impulses and give allegiance to the primal father (leader) of the group, who replaces the ego ideal. The erasure of individuality is established to maintain group identity, as the will of the individual is deemed too weak, unable to take action, and there is only a common will of the collective. No one should put themselves first; everyone should be equal and share similar ideas and perceptions. A threefold regression occurs ;
- To primary narcissism. Where the ego and superego relinquish control to the leader.
- The Id takes control of the mental apparatus together with the Ego ideal, which achieves blissful union with the mother and re-establishes, via introjection, the first love object.
- The group and its members become the substitute for the lost object.
The paternal figure is expelled and secluded from the group, as well as the superego (moral conscience). The leader makes the members believe the impossible is possible, uniting the ego and the ego ideal, just as the pervert, who no longer needs to grow up, can take on the father’s role and possess the mother. The denial of the primal scene and father potency, the wish to heal one’s narc injury by reunion with the good breast and incestuous object (mother). The group cannot tolerate any delay between its desire and the fulfilment of what it desires. The leader must be held in fascination; the magician who has divine attributes and ability. You are permitted to disregard all standards and prohibitions of the superego, to invest your narc libido into a new ideal of infantile morality and sexuality. The capacity to perform atrocities in the name of an ideologue, whereby everything liable to hamper the success of the group illusion must disappear. This idealisation of the ego (the fusion of the ego ideal into the ego) is projected outward, and anyone upholding the projection must be harassed and ruthlessly annihilated.
Falsehood
What differentiates true from false, and why is false so popular and readily accepted? The pervert attempts to project his infantile ego ideal onto pregenital instincts and is not entirely blind to this act, which makes him devoid of his father’s prerogatives and mature attributes. A make-believe phallus, due to faulty or non-introjection of paternal qualities, circumvents the process of sublimation. The fetish becomes an imitation or substitute for the genital penis, an intense archaic identification with an object providing erotic fulfilment and seuxal gratification. The formation of the superego is based on the acceptance of reality, whereby the ego ideal is based on the desire to reform or rectify the ego’s limitations and weaknesses. The mother despises the father for multiple reasons and worships her sons’ excitement and companionship; he is a more adequate, loving partner. The avoidance of a painful sexual truth of the primal scene is averted, and castration anxiety is postponed with incestuous fulfilment. Separation anxiety predominates over castration anxiety, as any movement away or loss of the love object may result in collapse and fragmentation. The fetish waves a magic wand which modifies reality, where feelings of inferiority, lack of potency, and loss of mother exist no more.
Sublimation makes use of he same energy which is invested in perverse sexual activity. Once the pregenital links are surrendered and sexual disposition of the child starts to mature, this energy can be diverted to higher, more cultured goals and achievements. At the time of the Oedipal complex, the son projects his ego ideal onto his father, as he wants to be like him, possess his prowess and potency, and become a man.
Chasseguet-Smirgel, Janine (1985); Creativity and Perversion, Free Association Books
